


I'll Be In The Sunrise

by Ninyaaaaaaah



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: (again this occurs once and I'll tag the chapter), (occurs once in one chapter - i'll put a specific warning at the beginning of said chapter), Anal Sex, Angst, Animal Death, Blood, But it's there, Drunk Sex, Guns, Jamilton - Freeform, M/M, Masturbation, Oral Sex, Post-Apocalypse, SO, Sub Drop, Violence, Vomiting, enemies to friends to lovers I guess, i'll just tag all the chapters individually hows that sound?, injuries, it's not OVERLY graphic, it's not that dark of a fic I promise, slow ish burn, these tags are a Lot, uh I tried to tag everything, wet dreams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-30
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-11 07:22:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 42,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13519311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ninyaaaaaaah/pseuds/Ninyaaaaaaah
Summary: Alex doesn't think, he just acts, just survives. When he jumps in the back of an idling Escalade and holds a gun to the driver's head, he's not thinking about anything but surviving the moment.He's certainly not thinking about how one move can change his whole life.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [missjo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/missjo/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all HUGE thanks to missjo for being my beta/friend/sounding board and tirelessly listening to me scream and encouraging me! 
> 
> second of all, the fic title is from "Alright" by Keaton Henson 
> 
> third of all this chapter contains: guns.

Nothing beats the elation of successfully slipping something of value into his pocket unseen. Disappear, gone, just a soft weight against his thigh. Like it was never there, never happened at all. 

Soft, soft, Alex pads to the broken basement window. Fingertips on damp windowsill, careful to avoid broken glass, and then gently _up_ until his knees catch on the sill. Then out, and thank god he’s small, it’s the only way he manages to do this half the time. 

He’d be lying through his teeth if he said a part of him doesn’t relish this new life. 

That teeth bared, poised for survival, sharp edged, hollow boned part of him that had lived all along, lived through poverty and loss and hurricanes. That wild piece inside him that had bitten off a chunk of his heart and curled up under the shelter of his rib cage, sucking on the muscle like a pacifier, and waited. Waited through college, through the last desperate gasps of a dying world struggling to hold onto some semblance of structure. Waited through Eliza with one yellow eye open, knowing she knew it was there, knowing she didn’t understand it and wanted it gone, snuffed out. Wanted Alex tame, wanted Alex kind, wanted Alex to give of the very marrow of his bones, not realizing that his bones were hollow and filled only with air. Waited, waited, until it was just Alex alone on a damp and lumpy mattress with the dim light that passed for sunlight streaming in through a window. 

Alex alone. 

Alex with a ribcage cracked open and a heart that ached and ached.

Waited, until Alex turned inwards and found it there waiting, and then grinned a feral grin, strip of heart muscle hanging from its teeth, and reminded Alex from whence they’d came. 

And so Alex had remembered how to survive. 

As the city collapsed in on itself, as the government choked out one final, agonized breath, and died. As people turned on one another and Eliza, dear Eliza, looked at Alex in disgust and left him behind, Alex remembered how to survive. 

And so he was alone, well, wasn’t he used to that? Wasn’t he used to just himself and this yellow-eyed, sharp toothed thing in his chest; together against the world? 

So he survived.

He leaned heavily on that part of him that had hibernated all those years, watched it lick the inside of his heart clean from the rot of heartbreak until it was shiny and raw and aching. Watched it bite into his lungs until he remembered to breathe and he remembered how to get by in a world that had no kind eye on him, no soft place to fall. 

Barely made it out of his and Eliza’s old apartment alive the night looters came, his heart hammering in his chest, skin prickling, all sleep dulled and softened by Eliza’s love. 

That softness, it nearly killed him.

But he’d scrambled free, out a back window and down a precarious fire escape with nothing but the clothes on his back and the hollow bones in his body. 

The restless thing in his chest sighed, and went to work polishing him smooth and sharp again.

Now, Alex pulls himself silently out through the window and into the wet street. His bare feet are already soaked, but there’s no point in shoes when the whole world seems under water. 

It rains softly. Hell, it always rains these days, and Alex doesn’t bother trying to cower from it. There’s no point. 

His dirty tank top clings to him, fabric worn thin and translucent from overwear. It had been white, once upon a time. His jeans are held up with a length of rope, far too loose on his thin frame now, hems worn and frayed. 

Heavy weight in both pockets. Rolex watch. Diamond ring. Cash. 

That’s the important part.

Alex grina. Feral. Sharp. 

He heada down the street. The unloaded Glock G43 tucked into his waistband, muzzle nestled into the sharp hollow of his hip. 

The sun is setting. It’s hard to tell much, beyond the clouds, except that the light turns a little eerie green-yellow, a colour that reminds Alex of Nevis, reminds Alex of hurricanes, of the world raging so hard it tore at itself. Howling wind, fever-pitch seas, bodies floating in streets. 

Alex alone. 

Alex with a heart that didn’t yet know how to properly ache. Alex with a tongue that hadn’t tasted the heavy lead of pain, not yet, not really.

Alex with ten trembling, cold, waterlogged fingertips that started learning how to cling hard to life back then, and are still doing it now, all these years later. 

It’s impossible to move silently in the water. 

Alex picka up a jog, hopea, as always, that chance will have it that he won’t step on anything sharp and unseen. Splash splash down the alleyway, footsteps light, eyes scanning for dry ground always. Finding it never. 

“Hey!” The shout pierces the wet air, burns a hole right to Alex’s guilty, heavy pocket. He keeps trotting, ignores it, pretends they aren’t shouting at him. Knows they are. 

“Hey! Get back here with my watch, you fucking thief!” Heavy footsteps in the water behind him and Alex swears. He breaks and runs for his life. 

There’s no turning back, admitting guilt, giving over stolen goods in exchange for forgiveness and freedom and his life. Not now, not in times like these when people cling to the oddest of things. What the hell does anyone need a Rolex watch for when starving to death is a very real concern? You can’t eat the damn thing. 

At best, it will buy Alex a handful of coin he can trade for a meal or two. 

At best.

Still, he’d gotten the damn thing into his pocket and gotten out of the wet, musty apartment with it still there and in this day and age, that means it’s his.

Fair and square.

Or, as fair and square as anything ever is. 

The rest of the world is waking up to things Alex has known his whole life - nothing ss fair, and those who take what they want, get what they want. 

He can almost feel Eliza on his shoulder like a guilty conscience, shaking her head, offering love instead. 

Shakes her off, and runs faster, long strides through water, water, more water. The ocean is slowly rising up to reclaim what is rightfully its. 

The sound of a gun firing is a deafening, loud crack that splits the night air. 

Alex flings himself sideways, feels the heat of a bullet zing right past his ear. Swears, and runs faster. 

He ducks around the corner and onto the street, no cover anywhere, except-

A preposterously, impeccably, impossibly, shiny brand new, sparkling clean, Cadillac Escalade, idling against the curb.

Alex takes a gamble. 

Bolts for it, wet hands scrambling at the handle, yanks the door open and flings himself into the back seat. 

Slams the door behind him as he hears the gun fire again. 

“What- Hey- What the fuck get out of my car-” The indignant, Southern drawl cuts off sharp.

The muzzle of a gun against your neck will do that, Alex supposes.

“Drive. Drive, asshole, go, go, go!” Alex hisses. 

Wordlessly, the driver puts the Escalade in gear, puts the pedal to the floor, and peels out. 

Alex lets out a whoop of triumph, gun carefully pressed to the soft brown skin of the stranger’s neck, just under the hinge of his jaw. 

The driver is tall, his thick cloud of black corkscrew curls making him seem taller. Straight backed, rigid, jaw tight. Well. Alex supposes he’d be tense too, if someone had a pistol to his neck. 

Nevermind that the damn thing is empty.

“Where am I taking you?” The driver asks, voice tight, drawl thicker with indignation.

“Wherever you want, baby, I’m all yours; just take me away,” Alex says, grinning, sing song and all elated. 

The driver snorts.

“Are you serious? You have a fucking gun to my neck in case you’ve forgotten. Your wish is my command,” he has the audacity to sneer, to make it sound like an insult, venom in every word. 

Alex’s grin turns a little dark, little feral. 

“Take me somewhere dry, then. And food, if you please,” Alex feigns a yawn. Inspects his short, dirty fingernails. What else can he get out of this? 

“Fuck you,” The driver breathes under his breath. But he keeps driving, hands steady on the wheel, eyes straight ahead. Everything about him is perfect, perfect composure, beard trimmed close with perfect lines, tight purple t-shirt hugging his well muscled frame, and damn, Alex is lucky he has a gun or he wouldn’t stand a chance against this guy. 

“No, thanks,” Alex says back, sugar sweet, leaning in, mouth close to that perfect ear. 

The driver flinches, and grits his teeth so hard Alex can actually _hear_ them grind together, and dammit if that sound doesn’t just make him want to laugh. 

He feels giddy, high on victory. Never mind that despite the gun, he’s in a stranger’s car driving to a destination of a stranger’s choice, and could very well end up in very hot water at the end of this journey. 

Depends, Alex guesses, on how intimidated the stranger actually is by him. 

Silence falls, tense and thick in the immaculate car. 

Alex starts to shiver, cold and wet. He clenches his teeth to keep them from chattering, and breathes through his nose. 

Alex soon loses track of where they are and where they’re headed, so many turns that he knows he’s lost. Doesn’t matter, much. 

Buildings grow shorter, spaced out, and these streets even have god damn trees on them. Waterlogged, dead, leafless trees, but trees nonetheless. 

“What’s your name?” Alex asks. 

The stranger snorts derisively.

“Yeah fuck you,” he snaps.

Alex nudges the gun against his soft flesh. 

The stranger sighs, flicks his dark brown gaze sideways and raises an eyebrow at Alex.

“Why do you care, asshole?” He asks. Pauses. “Thomas. Jefferson.”

“Good. Where are you taking me?” Alex asks. 

“Home. It’s dry, there’s food, and there’s no one else there.” Thomas shrugs one shoulder carefully. 

“There better not be. If anyone else so much as _breathes_ when we get there, you’re fucking dead, do you hear me?” Alex asks, pressing the muzzle of the gun deeper into Thomas’ soft skin. 

“There’s no one else there,” Thomas repeats. Sounds tired, almost bored, and actually closes his damn eyes for a split second before reopening them and focussing on the road. 

Alex falls silent again, and watches the side of Thomas’ face as Thomas drives. They turn up a street and onto wet pavement, through wide open gates. The street isn’t flooded out here, the trees actually still hold a smattering of leaves, and the house…

Alex’s eyes just about fall out of his head. 

The house is huge. 

“You’re sure there’s no one else here,” Alex says, voice flat. 

Thomas sighs. 

“There is no one else here. No one. Just me,” Thomas speaks deliberately slow, as if Alex is stupid.

“You expect me to believe you live in this huge ass house all by yourself?” Alex demands. 

Thomas swallows hard. Parks the Escalade inside a garage and leaves the door open. 

“Yes. I do. Do you know why I live in this ‘huge ass house’ all by myself? Because everyone else is gone, they’re dead, they all fucking _died_ okay, so fuck off, would you? You have a gun to my neck. Do you think I’m honestly going to go against your requests? Jesus Christ you’re an asshole,” Thomas unbuckles his seat belt, turns the car off and goes to pocket the keys. Alex makes a sharp sound of correction in his throat. Holds out his hand. 

“Give those to me,” he says. 

“Oh no.” Thomas shakes his head. “No. No, no fucking way you are not taking my car, fuck you, just shoot me then.” 

Alex stares at him for a long moment. Neither of them move. The only sound in the car the beat of Alex’s heart in his chest. The only motion the rise and fall of Thomas’ chest, back pressed tight to the seat.

“You really value your car more than your life?” He asks, something a little softer, a little curious, in his tone.

“Yes, honestly, at this point yes,” Thomas replies.

It’s Alex’s turn to snort derisively.

“Jesus Christ, man, I should just put you out of your misery. Fine, keep the keys. We’re going to go inside, and you’re going to get me something to eat and let me dry my clothes. Then we’ll talk.” Alex lowers the gun, and Thomas lets out a huge sigh, body deflating.

“Talk? There’s nothing to discuss. I’ll allow you some food and to get dry and then you are leaving my house.” Thomas opens the door and gets out of the Escalade.

Alex follows, shutting the car door behind him. 

“We’ll see,” he mutters, and follows Thomas up the steps into the biggest, grandest house he’s ever seen in his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments help me post chapters faster ;)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> no warnings apply to this chapter :)

An hour later, Alex pads down the sweeping staircase, dressed in a soft blue hoodie that’s ridiculously large on him, and smells faintly of expensive cologne, and a pair of checkered pyjama pants that are far too large on his slender frame. 

He finds Thomas in the kitchen. The taller man freezes at the sight of him, looking like he’d seen a ghost.

“Where did you get those?” He snaps.

“Uh, the dresser in the bedroom I changed in,” Alex drags a barstool out from the kitchen island and pulls himself onto it, resting his elbows on the dirty counter. 

“Oh.” Thomas looks a little stunned, but he gives his head a shake, and turns back to the small fire he has going in the massive fireplace. There’s a small pot rigged up to hang over the fire, water boiling away pleasantly inside. Alex’s jeans and tank top hang over the back of a chair nearby, dripping brown water onto the cold marble floors. 

“What are you making?” Alex asks. He lets the sleeves of the hoodie fall past his hands, wraps his arms around himself for warmth. He gets cold easily, and the rain and water chilled him.

“Kraft Dinner,” Thomas replies absently, almost pleasant.

Alex perks up. The last time he’d found a box of Kraft Dinner, he’d tried to make it with no heat, hadn’t wanted to draw attention to himself by starting a fire. The result had been decidedly unappetizing, cold, gritty noodles with sticky orange paste and a decidedly raw flavour.

The prospect of a hot meal is enough to make his mouth water.

“Wonderful, I’m starving.” Alex drops his chin into his hands with a content sigh, comforting weight of the gun in the pocket of the hoodie, resting in his lap. 

Thomas pauses, twisting to look at Alex with raised eyebrows, wooden spoon in his hand. Paints a picture that’s almost domestic.

“Just make yourself at home why don’t you,” he sneers. Looks like he’s a half step away from hurling the wooden spoon into Alex’s face.

Alex shrugs. Grins.

“Thanks, I have.” He’s warm, and mostly dry - damp hair piled on top of his head in a sloppy bun - for the first time in a long time, and the prospect of hot food - if Thomas didn’t poison it - is intoxicating. 

Thomas makes a disgusted noise in the back of his throat, and turns back around. 

Silence falls over the kitchen, and Thomas hums off key as he pulls the pot off the fire and drains the noodles, stirs in the cheese powder, and slops half of it into a paper bowl. 

“Here.” Thomas slides the pot across the counter, and tosses Alex a spoon. “I don’t have butter, so, it’s not as good, but.” He trails off. Shrugs. 

“Thanks,” Alex digs in with the spoon, and swears when he burns the roof of his mouth, hot cheese sauce melting over his tongue. 

“Don’t thank me. You held a goddamn gun to my head. I wouldn’t be doing any of this if I had a choice. Not one bit. So you can take your thanks and shove it up your ass,” Thomas leans against the counter and digs into his Kraft Dinner with the wooden spoon. 

Alex blinks. Blows carefully on his next spoonful of Kraft Dinner before putting it in his mouth. He’s starving, and having to wait and eat slowly is some kind of torture. 

“Be grateful I didn’t just shoot you,” Alex retorts. 

Thomas rolls his eyes. 

“I almost wish you had, if it would have saved me having to listen to your voice.” He spoons Kraft Dinner into his mouth, poised, almost dainty. 

Alex tries not to shovel Kraft Dinner into his mouth as fast as he can, knows he looks a sight next to Thomas, all dishevelled and damp, gritty with sweat and rain and dirt. 

“Just say the word and I’ll do the honours,” Alex sneers. 

“Give me the gun and I’ll do it myself,” Thomas shoots back. 

“Fat chance,” Alex gives up on trying to eat neatly, tucks one hand into the hoodie pocket to let it sit protectively over the cool metal of the gun, and proceeds to shovel Kraft Dinner into his mouth as fast as he can, hunger winning out. 

Thomas watches him, dark eyes unreadable, as he eats at a far more sedate pace. Eats like he doesn’t know what hunger feels like, not really, not the kind that gnaws on your backbone until you want to scream. 

Eats like food isn’t a luxury, like people in the inner city don’t fight each other over a stale heel of bread. 

Something about Thomas’ relaxed posture, the smug way he leans on the counter as he eats like it’s a leisure, like it’s something to be taken for granted, something he’ll always have… it prickles at Alex’s skin, makes him heat with irritation. 

Alex inhales the Kraft Dinner impossibly fast. Scrapes the cheese sauce from the side of the pot and licks the spoon clean. Would lick the pot, too, had Thomas not been watching him with those imperiously arched brows, smug look on his face as he eats slowly, as if it isn’t Alex with the upper hand, as if Alex isn’t the one with a gun in his lap. 

“So,” Alex runs his finger around the rim of the pot, and sucks the orange sauce off it. Dropps the spoon inside, and pushes it away. “What are you going to do?”

Thomas stares at him. Chews his mouthful of Kraft Dinner slowly. Swallows.

“About what?” he asks, that sticky sweet Southern drawl laid on thick. 

Alex gestures all around himself vaguely.

“This. Yourself,” he says. Blinks, and huffs a little laugh when Thomas just stares at him. “You don’t think you can just _stay_ here, do you?”

“Why would I go anywhere else?” Thomas asks, brows furrowing. 

“You’re alone in a huge house. You still have resources. You have a working car. I’m shocked the looters haven’t gotten this far, Jefferson. You’ve been really lucky but this shit’s not going to last and you’re going to wind up dead over your last box of Kraft Dinner. Fuck man, if I had a car I’d have fled long ago.” Alex looks around, fingers itching to explore drawers and rooms and cupboards, sure there’s so much of use here that he’ll have trouble deciding what to take. 

“You want me to just pack up and leave? This is my _home_ , Alexander. I own it, and I’m keeping it.” Thomas pushes his empty bowl and spoon aside, and folds his arms across his chest.

“‘I own it’,” Alex mocks, grinning cruelly. “Like that means shit anymore. Seriously man, you’re delusional. You and what army?” 

Again, Thomas just stares.

“You watch. Looters will come and strip you bare of everything you ‘own’. Newsflash, asshole, there’s no government. There’s no cops. Who’s going to back you up when they come to take everything from you?” Alex inspects his dirty fingernails. Wishes fervently for a hot bath, but that was a luxury of days long gone, now. “Oh, and? You were accessory to a robbery today, in a pretty damn recognizable car. There might not be laws anymore, but there’s certainly street justice.”

Thomas splutters indignantly. 

“Get out. Just get out of my house. I never want to see your fucking face again, get out!” He swears, and throws the paper bowl at Alex. 

It flutters to the ground between them. 

Alex laughs. 

“Nope. Face the music, my friend, you gotta go while you still get to pick what you leave with. Sleep on it, anyways.” Alex hops down from his stool, stretches, and turns to leave the kitchen.

“Where the fuck are you going?” Thomas asks, voice deadly even.

“To bed. Like I said, sleep on it.” Alex doesn’t look over his shoulder as he walks out of the kitchen- and heads towards the ridiculously grand, sweeping staircase.

“I said, get out of my fucking house.” Thomas follows him to the stairs, jaw tight. 

“And I said nope. I’m staying the night. You have room, deal with it.” Alex climbs the stairs, Thomas behind him, and pads back into the room he used to change earlier. 

“Are you always this obnoxious?!” Thomas stops in the doorway, arms folded tight across his chest, and glares at Alex.

“Yep,” Alex lifts the covers, and climbs into the cold, stale smelling bed, faint hint of the same cologne that’s on the hoodie he’s wearing imbued into the sheets. “Goodnight, Jefferson.”

“Ugh. Fine, you can stay the night you fucking dick head.” Thomas whirls, and yanks the door closed behind him with a loud bang. 

Leaves Alex alone.

Alex stretches luxuriously, revelling in the novelty of being in a bed, in a room, safe - for now, doesn’t doubt for a moment anything he’d said to Thomas; this house is on borrowed time. How it hasn’t been ransacked already, he doesn’t know. 

He can only speculate for a moment as he nestles into the bedding, one hand wrapped securely around the gun in his pocket, before sleep rises up, and drags him down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come scream at me on tumblr @ ninyaaaaaaah


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> chapter warnings: none.

Alex wakes up with the first light of dawn, disoriented, nauseous, and dazed. He feels a little drugged, feels a little loose and loopy and heavy limbed. 

Groans quietly and rubs his hands over his face, blinking in the empty room, amazed Thomas actually left him alone to sleep here. Amazed that he actually fell asleep here. 

The Kraft Dinner has turned to lead in his gut, a bigger, richer meal than he’s used to having, followed by heavy sleep, and it leaves him feeling decidedly sick. 

Alex grits his teeth and sits up slowly. Isn’t about to lose the first real meal he’s had in ages because he was too stupid to pace himself. 

He swings his legs over the edge of the bed and stands up. Swallows hard, and stretches. Gives his head a shake and tries to dredge up some alertness. He hates this sluggish, slow, sedated feeling, the fullness in his belly spreading through his limbs, making him want to rest. 

Can’t rest. Have to move. Have to keep going, push on, move, move, always move. 

Gives the soft skin on the inside of his forearm a sharp pinch. Wake up.

Takes a deep breath, and pads to the door. Cracks it. Peeks out. 

Nobody in the hallway. 

Alex creeps down the sweeping staircase, slow, slow. Silent. 

Grins at the sight of the Escalade’s keys in a dish in the foyer. Pockets them. 

The hard part over with, Alex sets to work searching the house. 

Quietly, carefully, Alex treks back and forth from the house to the open garage. Fills the Escalade with every non-perishable food item he can find. Boxes and boxes of Kraft Dinner, cans of soup, tuna, a jar of multi vitamins, canned beans, vegetables, ramen noodles. Packs it all into the trunk of the Escalade, jammed as tight as he can. 

He Returns to the house and pads upstairs, goes over the huge bathroom with a fine toothed comb, packs toothbrushes and toothpaste, soap and shampoo, gauze pads, bandaids, and first aid supplies. 

He's rooting through what looks like an office when all the hair stands up on the back of his neck and he freezes, four books tucked under his arm, bottle of vodka he found in the desk drawer in his hand. 

Turns around and grins a slow grin at Thomas. 

“Good morning.” 

“What the fuck are you doing?” Thomas asks, voice flat, arms crossed over his chest. He’s dressed in loose gray sweatpants and a tight waffle cotton, long sleeved shirt. Looks damn good, if Alex has to admit it. 

“Packing,” Alex replies. He passes Thomas through the doorway and carries his armful back to the garage, adds it to the trunk. “You might want to help.”

“Wait. Wait. You’re not coming with me if I leave, fuck that. How did you get into the car? What are you taking? You can’t take my car. I’m not leaving!” Thomas splutters, following behind Alex. 

“I am coming with you, are you kidding? You’re just going to sit here until someone comes along who’s just going to shoot you and take all your shit, no questions asked. You need me.” Alex turns back into the house, and jingles the keys in Thomas’ face as he passes, snatches them out of reach when Thomas makes a grab for them. 

“I’m not leaving my goddamn house!” Thomas snaps, voice rising, tightness in his voice, in every line of his body. 

Alex shrugs, returns to the office and gathers up a giant armful of newspapers. Carries it back, Thomas at his heels. 

“Humour me,” he says. Feels alive, nauseous and heavy, sleepy feeling dissipating under the simple act of _doing_ something. 

“No. Fuck you. This is my house, my car, my stuff, my life you’re trying to take over. No. I said no!” Thomas tries to make a grab for Alex, and quick as a wink, Alex darts out of his grasp, stuffs the newspapers into the Escalade, and points the gun at Thomas’ chest.

Thomas freezes. 

“I don’t think you realize what is actually happening out there right now. Go inside. If you come back without an armful of something useful, I am going to fucking shoot you. I’ll be in here, packing.” Alex makes a shooing motion at Thomas with the gun. 

Thomas makes a strangled sound of rage, turns on his heel, and disappears. 

Alex tucks the gun back into the pocket of the hoodie, and starts rooting around in the garage. 

He finds several full gas cans, and packs those. Rope, tarp, duct tape, flashlights, batteries. Packs it all into the rapidly filling trunk. 

Chooses to bite his lip when Thomas returns with a Gucci suitcase stuffed full to the brim, and wordlessly lays it in the back seat. Turns and goes back into the house without a word, back ramrod straight, teeth clenched. 

Alex found and axe, a crowbar, a screwdriver, a book on car maintenance, a tire repair kit - someone had done some hands on work with vehicles, though Alex doubted very much that it was Thomas. 

Thomas returns with an armload of bedding, and stuffs it all into the back seat. 

“I’m not leaving. The car is not leaving. You’re not making me do this,” Thomas says, voice heavy. 

“You’re going to get killed in this house. You are.” Alex tosses an empty bucket into the trunk, follows it with a box of garbage bags. “Come on, back in the house.” Alex locks the Escalade, and steps past Thomas into the house. 

Thomas follows him. Watches with crossed arms while Alex grabs a pot, candles, matches, a lighter, a handful of cutlery and two bowls, and the two large chef’s knives. 

“No, I’m fucking not. It’s _my house_.” Thomas snarls. 

Alex rolls his eyes, starts back for the garage. 

“And I keep telling you, that doesn’t mean _shit_ anymore.” Alex unlocks the Escalade, stuffs everything in. “Go get more shit. The sooner we go, the safer we are.” 

Alex heads back into the house. Cam almost feel the tension radiating off of Thomas’ lean body as he stalks after him, so close he’s nearly stepping on his heels. 

“Why do you care, anyway? Just take all my shit and go, why don’t you?” Thomas asks, sullen. 

Alex shrugs. 

“I mean I could. But someone told me once I needed to be less selfish. So here I am. Being less selfish. Saving your sorry ass from yourself, now would you go. Get. Some. Stuff?” 

Eliza. 

She’d always been so much better than him. Always would be. Some small part of him is glad she’d left before he’d dragged her down with him, gotten her killed, or worse. Part of him misses her, dearly, desperately. Most of him just tastes bitter at the memory of her, a shining sun in a midnight world, and a breath of fresh air he’d always known wouldn’t last.

Alex shakes off his thoughts and turns, faces Thomas, hates that he had to look up at him, but makes up for in gun what he lacked in height.

“Fuck you. Seriously, fuck you. I didn’t ask for any of this!” Thomas snaps back, voice raised, looks a half step from trying to wring Alex’s neck. “I’m not going with you. You’re not taking my car. Just stop. Get out. Get _out_!” Thomas’ voice rises as he talked, bordering on hysteria, and Alex almost feels sorry for him for a second.

Almost.

Until he hears the sound of shattering glass, far away, but not far enough. 

They both freeze. Don’t breathe, don’t move, eyes locked on each other. Alex tries to will his heartbeat to slow, to quiet. 

“Now do you believe me?” Alex hisses through his teeth, adrenaline pumping through his veins. 

Wordlessly, Thomas nods. 

“Come on,” Alex gestures at Thomas to follow him, pads quietly up the stairs and into a room at the front of the house - sprawling, ridiculous, massive bedroom - and creeps carefully to the window. 

Silently, Thomas comes up beside him and looks too. 

For a long moment, there’s nothing but tense, still silence. Alex has never been so aware of someone else’s breathing. 

Movement catches his eye, a person darting down the street, crouching by a parked car.

A second, close behind. 

“Shit,” Thomas breathes.

“Let’s get out of here. It’s not safe,” Alex whispers. This house is a defensive nightmare, too big, too sprawling, too many ways to get in. There’s no way the two of them could ever hope to hold it safe.

“Grab a last armful of stuff and let’s hit the road, come on.” Alex turns away from the window, and trots silently out of the large room, back to the kitchen. 

Thomas doesn’t follow. 

Alex grabs whatever comes handy. Tinfoil, an unopened ‘survival kit’ from the bench in the garage, some cords, a rain coat hanging from a hook, a bicycle pump. Throws it all in. 

His heart beats in his throat as he jogs back into the house. Grabs his tank top and jeans from where they still sit by the empty fireplace, and tosses them in too. All his worldly possessions in one fell swoop. 

He’s about to go searching for Thomas when he appears, duffle bag stuffed to bursting, heavy winter coat tucked under his arm, more bedding in his other hand. Stuffs it all into the car. 

Alex takes a deep breath. Looks at Thomas. New partner in crime whether he wants one or not.

“Ready?” He asks.

“No,” Thomas says. 

“Anything else you can think of to grab?” Alex asks. 

“No,” Thomas says again. 

Punctuated by the unmistakable sound of a rock through a window, shattering glass disrupting the peace and sealing their fate. 

Thomas goes white, looks for a minute like he’ll turn around, rush back in right into the face of whoever has just broken into the house.

“Don’t,” Alex hisses. “Get in the car, we’re out of here.”

“But you have a gun!” Thomas hisses back. 

Alex gets in the car, shuts the door. Jangles the keys at Thomas.

“Yeah. I have a gun. Get in the damn car and drive!” 

Thomas hesitates a second longer, then jumps into the driver’s seat, snatches the keys from Alex. 

Starts the car.

Throws it in reverse.

Steps down hard on the gas.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> chapter warnings: none

The Escalade sails backwards out of the garage with a great roar of the engine that makes Alex’s heart leap in his chest, adrenaline coursing through his veins. 

“Fuck!” Thomas swears, knuckles white on the wheel as they very nearly run two people over. 

They barrel backwards down the driveway, the car fishtailing wildly for a moment on the slick pavement, Thomas’ jaw tight, eyes wide. 

Alex whoops with laughter as they back into the street, one of the men they’d nearly run over chasing them down the driveway, brandishing a knife. 

“Go, go, go!” Alex hollers, the grin on his face somewhere South of sane. 

Thomas yanks the car into drive and stomps on the gas. 

The tires squeal against wet pavement as they peel out down the tree lined street, Thomas swearing under his breath, Alex laughing, giddy, wild, alive, heart beating wildly in his chest. 

It’s raining lightly, road shining in the early morning light, thick gray clouds heavy in the sky, hanging low. 

Silence falls in the car as they drove, and Alex pulls his feet up onto the seat.

“No. Get your fucking feet off the seat. Where are your shoes?” Thomas snaps. Reaches out and smacks Alex’s knee.

“Seriously?” Alex doesn’t move. “I don’t have any.”

“Fucking serious? We packed all this shit and you didn’t think to ask me for a god damn pair of shoes?!” Thomas throws his hands up in the air for a split second, then grabs the wheel again. “Get your goddamn feet off the seat!”

“No,” Alex says. Looks out the window and taps his fingers on the side of the car. 

Yelps in surprise as the Escalade slams to a halt and he pitches forwards, nearly smashing his head on the dash. 

“What the fuck!?” Alex pushes himself back up with his hands on the dash, one foot slipping off the seat. 

“Get. Your. Feet. Off. The. Fucking. Seat!” Thomas says through clenched teeth. 

Alex huffs, but this isn’t the hill he wants to die on, so he slips his other foot off the seat and leans back against the back of it. 

Thomas makes a small sound of satisfaction, and starts driving again. 

For a moment, there’s nothing but tense silence, a heavy third presence in the car between them. The air is charged and damp, and Alex feels like he can’t really breathe right, but at least he’s moving, at least he’s doing something, going somewhere, getting out of this god forsaken city into…

Who knows.

What’s out there past the city limits?

Alex doesn’t know, but it can’t be worse than this waterlogged city that’s slowly cannibalizing itself as food gets scarcer and scarcer. 

They keep driving, back into the tangled mess that passes for a city, back into roads that are always covered with water these days, back into the tangled, twisting mess that Alex calls home.

Calls. Called. Calls. Whatever. 

He sighs, and puts his feet up on the dashboard of the car. 

“Are you kidding me? Can you fucking not?” Thomas snarls. 

“I can,” Alex replies. “I wouldn’t slam on the breaks here, by the way. It’s not a good idea to stop. Someone might jump in and hold a gun to your head.” Alex takes the empty, gun out of the pouch of the hoodie, waves it in the air.

Puts it back. 

“Remind me why I brought you with me?” Thomas asks, and he sounds like he’s aged a hundred years in the last thirty seconds, voice heavy, tired sounding. 

“You need me,” Alex says. Smug. Cheerful. Bouyed by the thought of going somewhere new, sitting in his ticket out of the hellhole this city has become. Thought he’d die here in a wet alleyway, shot or stabbed over a cold can of soup. 

Instead, flying through the city in a spotless Escalade.

On his way out.

Out.

Freedom.

He lets out another whoop, and pulls his feet down from the dash, sits up straighter, takes one last look around as they rocket down the street, tall buildings looming on either side of them. 

“So long, motherfuckers!” Alex cheers, ebullient. 

Thomas glances over at him, looking decidedly concerned. 

“You’re enjoying this entirely too much,” he says, deadpan. 

Alex just grins. 

“Where’s your sense of adventure? This is great, we’re getting out of here!” Alex turns his gaze to the window, hand resting absently over the gun, protective. 

Thomas says nothing further, just turns his gaze back to the road. 

They ride along in silence. 

Alex looks out at the packed city, buildings close together, unseen tangle of people and alliances festering into something that’s bound to blow up sooner or later. The tension rises in the streets daily as food grows scarcer and scarcer. 

Alex thinks of Eliza. Doesn’t really miss her anymore, knows she was always too good for him, knows she wasn’t ever meant to last, not for him. 

Still.

Hopes she’s alright, hopes she got out. Hopes her huge heart doesn’t end up being the reason she doesn’t get out, the reason she ends up starving to death on a damp mattress in a too small bolt hole somewhere in the inner city. Hopes her need to give and give doesn’t end up being the reason she ends up shot in a street corner, trying to save someone who never would have thanked her for it anyways. 

She’s always been a far better person than him. 

Alex thinks of Nevis. Thinks of white sands and turquoise waters. Thinks of the sea rising up to reclaim what was its. Thinks of the world crashing down around him, everything turned to water. Thinks of how easily everything all falls apart, and how when he left all those years ago, he thought he’d never have to witness the world crumbling down around its ears again. 

And yet, here he is.

Sitting in the passenger seat of a stranger’s Escalade with a gun in his lap and no idea what comes next.

Alive.

Beside him, Thomas reaches over and fiddles with the radio dial. Static fills the car, soft, volume low. 

Something about the white noise soothes Alex’s restless heart, and he lets out a deep breath, tension ebbing. 

Thomas turns the dial this way and that. 

Nothing but static.

He sighs, and lets his hand drop.

“I don’t know why I keep trying that. Like there’s anyone out there. I dunno.” He shrugs, trailing off. 

Alex says nothing, just looks at the dial for a long moment, then back out the window.

After a moment, Thomas sighs again. Turns the windshield wipers up a notch. 

The silence falls over them again like a heavy blanket. The car is warm, and Alex stops feeling like he wants to curl up in his seat. Stops tapping his thumb restlessly on the gun. Stops feeling like he wants to climb out of his skin just for the sake of doing something. 

Slowly, the city gives way. 

Tall buildings grow shorter and flatter, skyscrapers giving way to suburbs, and eventually, suburbs giving way to open highway. 

“Where to?” Thomas asks, breaking the silence. 

Alex shrugs.

“South?” He asks. Figures it might be warmer. Figures it’s as good a direction as any.

“Alright.” Thomas takes an exit, gets on the interstate. Hits a button on the steering wheel and shifts in his seat. 

Silence falls again, stretching between them like an ocean. 

Alex watches the mile markers tick by, lets his thoughts wander, lets his head rest against the window. 

Thomas drives in silence, takes them off the interstate after a few hours, down country roads lined with thick trees. 

They don’t see another car.

They don’t see another sign of life.

They could be the only two people left in the world, and they’d never know it. 

Alex drifts. 

He watches the trees go by, lets the rhythm of the car on the road lull him. 

Falls asleep. 

Wakes up to a setting sun world, rain stopped, sky rich and red. 

Yawns. Stretches.

“Sleep well, sweetheart?” Thomas drawls, voice dripping with disdain. 

Alex glares at him.

“Yes, thanks for asking. The company was so riveting I couldn’t help myself,” he sneers. Looks around. “Where are we?” They’re still driving, trees and more trees on either side of them. 

Thomas flips the headlights on. 

“I don’t know,” he says. “Does it matter?” 

“No, I guess not. Let’s avoid cities, though,” Alex muses. Watches the red sky fade slowly into purple and then darkness as they drive along. 

Thomas turns down a gravel road, and pulls over.

“What are you doing?” Alex asks, sitting up straight. 

“Stopping. I’m hungry. I’m tired. I need to piss. I’m not driving all night.” Thomas unbuckles his seatbelt, turns off the car. 

“Uh uh. No. Nope. We’re not stopping out in the open like this,” Alex says. Reaches over and tries to grab the keys from Thomas. 

Thomas holds them out of reach. 

“No, fuck you, I can’t drive anymore!” Thomas says, a little desperate, nearly breaking sounding. 

Alex stretches across the center console, tries to grapple for the keys until Thomas shoves him roughly back. 

“Okay, fine, we’ll stop, but please Thomas not here. Pull off the road, out of sight.” Alex gives up trying to get the keys from Thomas, and looks out the window again into the darkening sky, alert for any movement on the road. 

Thomas sighs.

“Fine,” he says. He starts the car back up, and Alex sits on his hands, tense and alert, as they drive slowly down the dirt road. 

Finally, Thomas turns down a narrow driveway. Pulls the Escalade up the drive into an empty clearing, and, at Alex’s insistence, in past the treeline. 

“Satisfied?” He asks, sarcasm dripping from every word. 

Alex nods.

“Good, because I am about to piss my pants.” Thomas turns the car off, pulls the keys out of the ignition, and moves to pocket them. 

Alex reaches out, grabs Thomas’ wrist. Realizes with a start that this is the first person he’s touched in over a year, the feeling of warm, soft skin under his fingers foreign. 

“I’ll take those,” he says. Looks at Thomas to avoid staring at the place where his fingers meet Thomas’ wrist. 

“Like fuck you will,” Thomas says.

“Like fuck I won’t. I’m not getting out of the car without the keys in my hands because I don’t trust you not to drive off and leave me here alone,” Alex says. 

Reaches out with his other hand and snatches the keys from Thomas’ fingers before he can stop him. 

Lets go of his wrist, and fights the urge to rub his hand on something, anything, to get rid of the lingering warmth of touch. 

“How do I know you’re not going to do that to me?” Thomas asks.

“I don’t know how to drive,” Alex replies. 

For a long moment, they just stare at each other. Until Thomas breaks the eye contact. Until Thomas laughs. 

“Yeah right. Give me the keys, and stay in the car then. I’ll give them to you when you get out,” Thomas holds out his hand. Holds out an olive branch. Holds out a compromise. 

Alex shrugs, and drops the keys in Thomas’ hand. Waits.

Thomas gets out of the car, slams the door shut behind him. 

Alex watches him walk off into the woods for a moment, then crawls over the console into the back seat, then into the trunk. Digs around until he finds the can opener, a can of tuna, and a fork. Climbs back into the passenger seat. 

By the time Thomas returns, Alex has the tuna open, sitting cross legged in the seat with the fork in his mouth. 

“Feet. Down. How fucking dumb are you!?” Thomas snarls. Yanks the door closed behind him. 

“Calm down,” Alex says. Digs the fork into the tuna and takes a bite, then offers both the can and fork to Thomas.

“I’m not eating off your fork,” Thomas says, disgust lacing his words. 

“Suit yourself. They’re somewhere back there,” Alex waves vaguely towards the trunk. 

Thomas seems to consider it for a moment, then sighs, and takes the can and fork. Takes a bite of tuna, and passes it back. 

They share the can this way, passing it back and forth, alternating bites. It’s gone in a depressingly short amount of time, and Alex digs around for a plastic bag, drops the can and fork inside it and ties it up. Drops it at his feet to deal with in the morning, when it’s light. 

Holds out his hand for the car keys.

Thomas hesitates, then drops the keys in Alex’s waiting palm. 

Alex opens the door, hops down into soft, damp, cold ground. Stretches, and groans quietly as his body unkinks from a day spent in the car. 

It’s quiet out here, and Alex pads a short distance from the car, staring into the darkness. He’s not used to the quiet, not used to being so alone. Feels the skin at the back of his neck prickle, feels like his chest is tight, heart poised on a half beat, waiting. 

The weight of the keys in his hand is a comfort, and the gun in the pocket of the hoodie, however impotent. 

He stands for a moment, just listens to the sounds of the forest, just breathes. 

Never thought he’d make it out of the city alive.

By the time he walks back to the car, Thomas is in the back seat, seat folded flat, his long body stretched across the expanse and tucked into the blankets and pillows, only his head visible. 

Alex climbs back into the passenger seat and locks the doors. Tosses the keys underneath the driver’s seat, out of sight, and twists to look at Thomas. 

“You gonna share that space?” he asks. 

Thomas snorts in disbelief.

“Keep dreaming, asshole,” he says. 

“Where am I supposed to sleep?” Alex asks, affronted. 

Thomas shrugs. 

“Dunno. Don’t care.” He rolls over. Tugs the blanket over his head. 

“At least give me a pillow and blanket you selfish prick,” Alex snaps. 

Thomas doesn’t move. 

Alex stares at his back for a long moment, then sighs, and fumbles for the lever on the side of his seat. Drops the seat back as far as it will go, and turns over onto his side. Curls up, grateful the clothes he’s wearing are meant for someone far larger than himself. Pulls the hood up over his head, and tucks his hands into the sleeves. Closes his eyes.

As he relaxes into the seat, gets comfortable, and has to admit that despite being curled up in the passenger seat of a car, he’s sleeping better than he has in years. 

Silence and Darkness cocoon the Escalade. 

Alex listens to the sound of Thomas’ breathing, and finds himself relaxing as Thomas’ breathing slows and deepens, evening out as he falls asleep.

As he lies there listening, it strikes Alex for the first time that for the first time in over a year, the first time since Eliza left in a flurry of rage, tears, and slammed doors, he is not alone. 

Not alone.

He’s surprised by just how comforted he feels by that knowledge.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> chapter warnings: immature name calling

Alex wakes up shivering. 

Early morning light filters through the trees streams into the car, lighting the world in a soft, dappled glow. 

Alex sits up with a start, teeth chattering, and stares around. The windows are fogged up, lazy drops of condensation beaded on the glass. With a soft groan, Alex stretches, then curls his arms back around his body, hugging himself for warmth. 

He twists to peer back at Thomas, spark of irritation starting in his chest at the sight of him tucked so tightly into the blankets that the only part of him Alex can see is his cloud of dark curls. He doesn’t look cold, not one bit. 

Alex huffs, and leans across to the driver’s side of the car, fishes under the seat until he finds the keys, and pockets them. They jingle against the barrel of the gun, a satisfying sound. A safe sound. 

Alex unlocks the doors, and slips quietly out of the vehicle. Hisses a little when his bare feet hit wet, cold grass. Squints in the sun, unused to seeing it. 

Quietly, he pads out into the clearing, ends of his sleeves folded over his hands. He can still faintly smell the expensive cologne on the collar of the hoodie when he buries his nose in it for warmth. 

He stops at the edge of the clearing, and stares. Two deer freeze, and stare back, their shining wet noses quivering, round ears tense and alert. 

Alex can’t remember the last animal he’s seen other than the fat, mangy rats that compete for food in the city. 

He feels almost awed, staring at the deer, wants to blink and rub his eyes or pinch himself to be sure they’re real. 

Standing here like this, he can almost imagine the last few years a dream. The tension, the build up, the feeling that the whole world ss a tinder box one heartbeat away from exploding. 

And then, the inevitable fall out. 

The sick feeling of waking up with no power, and the horrifying, dawning realization that it wasn’t coming back. 

The rapid descent into chaos, panic, and violence. 

The collapse of the government, the rising tide of panic, and the eruption of chaos. 

Remembers holding Eliza tight and trying to come up with a plan, their own inevitable fallout already starting, then. 

And deep in his chest, that sharp toothed, hollow boned thing, whispering with its pointed tongue;

_”Survive, survive, survive,”_

And he had.

And he would.

Alex alone.

But at what cost?

Standing here, he can almost pretend it was all a bad dream.

He shifts, and accidentally steps on a twig. It snaps, deafening as a gunshot in the early morning quiet. 

The deer flee in one smooth, almost silent motion, and Alex is left alone again, standing in the sun, shivering, with soaking wet and nearly numb feet. 

There’s nothing else here. Just him, Thomas, the Escalade, and an entire forest. Just like a city, Alex knows the forest held all kinds of things he can use to survive. But he doesn’t know what those things are, and he doesn’t know how to find them. Could speak the city’s insidious language all day, but doesn’t know how to hear what the forest is saying. Knows there are cues and signs all around, and feels impotent and frustrated as he stares around, taking it all in, understanding hardly any of it.

Still. 

It feels strange, standing out here, all alone in the quiet. 

After a moment, he realizes that the forest’s ‘quiet’, much like a city’s, isn’t really quiet.

There’s a rustle of breeze through the trees, and the soft melody of birdsong. The forest is very much alive, and Alex feels like an intruder here, feels like he’s trespassing somewhere he has no right to be. 

The hair on the back of his neck standing straight up, Alex huffs a soft sigh, and turns to pad back through the damp undergrowth to the Escalade. Climbs back into the passenger seat and locks the doors. 

Thomas, incredibly, is still sound asleep, snoring softly. 

Alex leans across and tosses the keys back under the seat. Wants to roll the windows down to let the condensation burn off, but doesn’t know how. 

His stomach growls, and fuck being polite when Thomas hadn’t let him have a single piece of his absolute horde of bedding, so Alex climbs over the console and then climbs over Thomas - knees him in the stomach in the process and grins in satisfaction at the sleepy grunt of protest Thomas makes. 

“What the fuck,” Thomas groans, voice thick with sleep and confusion, as Alex clambers the rest of the way over him and into the trunk. 

There’s barely room for him in here, the trunk so full of stuff, and Alex spares a moment of annoyance that they hadn’t filled it fuller. 

But he’s hungry, and somewhere back here there’s food. 

He rustles around, digging through clothing and tools until he finds an unopened box of Triscuit crackers. Tosses it over Thomas’ and into the front seat, and then climbs back over him - knees him again, just out of spite - and climbs back into the front seat. 

“Ow, fuck off, can you not!?” Thomas flails up out of the blankets, glaring daggers at Alex. 

Alex shrugs.

“I needed food. You were in my way.” He tears open the top of the cracker box, pops the seal, and digs in. Dry, salty, better than nothing. 

He munches on the crackers contently, ignoring Thomas’ glare. 

“You’re a real prick, you know that?” Thomas mutters.

“Mmhmm,” Alex twists back around and pops the door open to let in some fresh air. Tucks his freezing feet up under him, and relaxes into the back of the seat. 

Hears Thomas huff, and shift around, and when he looks back, Thomas is under the blankets again.

Alex sighs, and settles in for a long morning. 

Passes the time by reading the car repair book he’d tossed into the car yesterday, box of crackers nestled in his lap. Doesn’t look up when Thomas finally decides to emerge from the blankets what felt like decades later, and stalks off into the woods without a word. 

Doesn’t look up when Thomas slides into the driver’s seat, reaches over, and plucks the box of crackers from Alex’s lap.

“Feet. Down,” he snarls. 

Alex ignores him.

“Get your fucking feet off the seat,” Thomas repeats.

“I don’t want frostbite, thanks anyways,” Alex retorts. Stretches out one leg and wags his bare foot at Thomas, finally feels like his feet are warm again after sitting on them for the past several hours. 

Thomas blinks. Sets the cracker box down on the console, got out of the car, and slams the driver’s side door behind him. 

Alex turns back to the book. Isn’t particularly interested in learning how to fix a car, but it’s something to read, and he figures he might need to know some day. 

Thomas roots around in the back seat, searching for god knows what, and Alex just keeps reading. 

Doesn’t look up when Thomas gets back into the front seat and shust the door. 

A pair of socks land in his lap. 

Alex blinks, and looks up at Thomas.

Thomas is staring straight ahead, jaw tight. 

“I’m not carrying your sorry ass around when your feet freeze off because you were too stupid to ask me for a goddamn pair of shoes. Put some socks on, asshole,” he says. “And where’d you put the keys?”

Alex stares for a long moment, then unballs the socks and slips them onto his feet. Lets his feet rest on the floor of the car. 

“Under your seat,” he says, a little softer.

Thomas reaches down and fishes them out. Starts the car, and looks over at Alex.

“Now what?” he asks.

Alex folds down the corner of the page he’s on and set the book at his feet. Shrugs.

“Dunno. South and inland?” He suggests.

“Do you have any sort of plan, here?” Thomas asks incredulously. 

Alex shakes his head.

“No. You drive, I’ll think. We’ll come up with something.” 

Thomas grunts and puts the car in reverse. Backs out into the clearing, and starts for the road.

Alex gives the clearing one last, long look as they drive away, sun high in the sky for the first time in days, crisp fall air fresh and clean smelling. 

They drive all day. 

Argue about everything along the way. The weather. Which direction to drive. Radio static on, or off (Alex wants it off). When to stop for breaks (Thomas has an infuriatingly small bladder, or so it seems to Alex). What and when and how much to eat (rationing is a new concept, for Thomas). Seatbelts on or off (Alex refuses to put his on). 

When they stop for the night, Alex finds himself relegated to the front seat, with no blankets, yet again. 

Whines at Thomas that he’s going to freeze to death, and gives in with a huff when Thomas just shrugs, says “I should be so lucky,” and rolls over, effectively ending the conversation. 

Alex lies awake for hours, staring through the windshield at the stars and marvelling once again at the fact that he’s not alone. 

Deep in his chest, the sharp toothed, hollow boned thing whispers;

_”survive, survive, survive,”_

~*~

Their days settle into a pattern. 

They drive all day, heading South and West, inland, away from people, aiming for the mountains. Alex is still trying to work out a plan, doesn’t know anything about surviving out here, but knows they have to get away from people if they want to stand even the slightest of chances.

Hell, people survived off the land for centuries. Sure, it’s different now, but it has to be doable. 

It has to be. 

As days go by, Alex has to admit that he enjoys bickering with Thomas. Even if the man absolutely infuriates him, the banter is a refreshing change from his own company. Having someone else to sharpen his teeth and wits against, hell, it’s a welcome reprieve from his own thoughts. 

Thomas, for his part, alternates between fiercely stubborn, quick tempered, and argumentative, and sullen and silent. 

Alex learns that Thomas is nothing short of completely useless when it comes to just about anything except driving the car. 

He doesn’t know how to start a fire out here in the wilderness, is a terrible cook even with what limited food they have, has no idea how to pitch a tarp or wash clothes or do anything else that would have been remotely useful. 

So Alex cooks, and Alex starts fires, and Alex determines what is and isn’t a safe place to stop. 

And Thomas whines, and complains, and bickers, and the tension between them boils up and up and up until Alex is almost looking forward to the explosion. 

It comes after five days of driving.

Alex points Thomas into a thicket of trees where the car will be invisible from the road unless you really look for it. It’s a tight squeeze, but it will be worth it to be safe. 

Thomas tries to argue that the Escalade won’t fit through there, and Alex insists, and Thomas maneuvers the car into the spot Alex is insisting on-

Goes white as a sheet at the sound of a branch scraping against the side of the car. 

Silently, he parks in the spot Alex wanted.

Silently, he gets out of the Escalade and shuts the door. 

Silently, he walks around to Alex’s side of the truck, and stares. 

After a moment, Alex rolls down the window and pokes his head out. Whistles through his teeth at the sight of the long scratch down the side of the car’s immaculate black paint. 

“Oh shit, that’s a big scratch,” he hisses. 

“Shut the fuck up you absolute prick,” Thomas hisses back, voice deadly quiet. Looks up to glare at Alex, and Alex is shocked to see a sheen of actual _tears_ in Thomas’ eyes. 

“What, are you _crying_?!” He pulls himself farther out of the car. “Over a scratch in the car?!” he can’t believe it. Of all the insignificant things to get upset about, a scratch on the side of the car is pretty damn low on Alex’s list. 

“If you say another word I am actually going to fucking murder you,” Thomas snarls, whole body tight and trembling with rage, eyes bright, hands curled into fists that couldn’t do a damn thing against anything they’re up against. 

Alex opens his mouth, and shuts it again when Thomas glares absolute daggers at him, whirls, and stalked off into the woods. 

Alex stares after him, then cranes his neck to look at the deep gouge in the side of the car.

After a long moment, he sits back up, turns off the engine, and sets the keys on the dash. Maybe it’s just because Thomas is so upset he’d forgotten, but Alex can’t help but marvel that he trusta him enough not to drive away and leave him here.

Even if he could, Alex isn’t sure he would.

Sure, Thomas is an arrogant, useless, infuriating ass.

But he’s still better than no company at all. 

Quietly, Alex gets out of the Escalade, his fingers itching to grab the keys and pocket them so that Thomas can’t take off without him. Resists. 

Leaves the keys where they are on the dash. An olive branch, a sign of trust, an outstretched hand. 

He goes to work digging a small fire pit, curses himself for the thousandth time for not having thought to pack a shovel - but what the fuck does he know about surviving out here? - and does the best he can with a stick. Scrapes away grass and leaves and dirt until he has enough of a hole to line with rocks and fill with twigs and branches. Tosses a couple handfuls of leaves in and hopes they’re dry enough to act as tinder - wants to save the newspapers for when they’re really stuck, and really need them. 

He crouches next to the fire pit, holds a lighter to the leaves and swears under his breath until they catch. 

He watches the tiny flame lick along the dry leaves and lap at the twigs until they catch too, stares into the fire without really seeing it until it really gets going, warmth and light flickering over Alex. He holds out his hands to the flames, lets them warm his palms. Thinks about a scratch in the side of an Escalade, and doesn’t really feel indignant anymore, just feels a little bit of hope slipping away, and for a moment it feels like everything might just be too damn hard. 

But no.

Fuck that. 

_”fuck that,”_ says the sharp toothed, hollow boned thing in his chest. 

_”survive, survive, survive,”_ it whispers. 

And Alex nods.

And Alex stands up and he brushes his warm palms down his dirty jeans and he walks around to the back of the Escalade and fills the pot with a couple bottles of water and digs out a box of Kraft Dinner and two spoons and pads back to the fire. Nestles the pot in the flames and sits back on his heels and watches the pot. 

Once the water comes to a boil - it feels like it takes forever to Alex, who was never much good at waiting patiently for anything - Alex dumps in the noodles, gives them a stir. Can already feel his mouth watering at the promise of a hot meal, and can’t even complain that it’s Kraft Dinner, again, because he’s still eating better than he has in ages. 

Carefully drains the water once the noodles are soft, stirs in the cheese packet, and leaves it on the fire to stay warm. Tries not to drool, wants to inhale the entire thing before Thomas returns, but no. 

Rations, rations. 

Feels ridiculous with so much food stockpiled in the back of the Escalade, but Alex doesn’t know when they’ll be able to resupply.

If ever.

And maybe they’re just prolonging the inevitable. Maybe all that’s going to happen is they’ll starve to death on a gravel road in the woods in the middle of nowhere a month or two from now, but goddammit Alex has never lay down and let anything beat him in his entire life and he’s not about to start now. 

“I found water.” Thomas’ voice snaps him out of his reverie, and Alex looks up, looks at the hard wall of resolve clear on Thomas’ face, the stubborn set of his jaw, the rage smouldering in his gaze, and he can’t help but grin a little. Little feral, little wide open and wild, because he thinks Thomas might just have it in him to survive too.

“Awesome! We’ll refill all the empty water bottles in the morning!” Alex plucks the pot off the fire and holds it out to Thomas, offers him a spoon. 

Thomas pauses, looks down at Alex crouched in the dirt by the fire, and then sighs and sits down, cross legged, in the damp grass. Accepts the pot and spoon, and digs in. 

Hums a sound of geniune pleasure, which Alex can’t quite echo over Kraft Dinner, and passes the pot back to Alex. 

Alex takes a bite, hands it back. 

They eat in silence for a moment, almost companionable, passing the pot back and forth. 

“We should boil the water, before we refill the bottles. Just to make sure it’s safe,” Thomas comments. 

“Yeah. Good call,” Alex says. Falls back into silence. 

“And do some laundry. You smell,” Thomas says. 

“Hey!” Alex twists to glare at Thomas, and is startled to see the tiniest grin on Thomas’ face. “...you ass.” Alex can’t help but smile a little, and Thomas laughs, and Alex’s heart skips a beat because goddamn it if that isn’t the best sound he’s heard in months. 

Covers his confusion by shovelling another spoonful of Kraft Dinner in his mouth, and turning his gaze back to the fire. 

They finish eating in silence. Put the fire out, toss dirt over the pit to smother any lingering embers. Get back in the car, windows cracked, frost already starting to form. 

“Will you give me a fucking pillow at least?” Alex asks as he curls back up in the passenger seat.

“Fuck you,” Thomas replies, voice muffled by the layers and layers of blankets. 

“Prick,” Alex rolls onto his side, tucks his knees up to his chest.

“Asshole,” Thomas mutters back. 

“Douchebag.”

“Dickhead.”

“Fuckface.”

“Asshat.”

“Really?”

“Shut up.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> chapter warnings: nudity, an intimate moment between Thomas & his Escalade

Alex wakes with the sunrise, another clear skied day, the longest stretch of them Alex can remember in years. 

He digs a towel, shampoo, and a bar of soap out of the trunk of the Escalade while Thomas sleeps on - Alex is beginning to think Thomas would sleep through a bomb going off beside his head - and starts off in the same direction Thomas took off in last night. 

Alex snaps twigs on branches as he passes, trying to give himself a trail to get back, knows he doesn’t know his way in the forest, doesn’t have an eye for landmarks that aren’t buildings and street signs and boarded up shops. 

The dew is cold on his bare feet, gun heavy in the pocket of the hoodie he hasn’t taken off in days. 

He hears the water before he sees it, cheerful babbling of a stream over the stones in its bed joining the early morning birdsong. 

The clearing is small, just a patch of grass at the bank of the stream, water rushing fast and shallow. 

Just a short distance from where Alex is standing, the stream bends and pools, slow and deep and dark, and Alex shudders at the idea of getting in that water with who knows what the fuck else is in there, but he can’t resist the thought of a bath, even in the fresh, chilly morning air. 

So he strips, cursing and yelping the entire time, and he sets the gun on a rock and wades into the cold water - swears and shivers at its bite, but he’s committed now and he’s not a chicken. 

So he wades clumsily across the rocky creekbed, praying there’s no unseen creatures in here, and takes a deep breath before plunging into the deep pool, up to his waist in the water, clothes and soap and shampoo clutched in his hands. 

Takes another deep breath and dunks under, the cold driving the breath from his lungs, prickling sharp over his skin. 

When he surfaces, his skin is all over goosebumps and it takes him a moment to remember how to breathe again, but then the cold water numbs him and it’s almost bearable, almost. 

He washes his clothes, and then scrubs himself clean, teeth chattering, wishes he’d thought to build a fire _before_ doing this. 

Gathers his things up off a rock and looks up. 

Stops dead as his gaze meets Thomas’.

“See something you like?” Alex sneers, standing waist deep in the water, lips blue, teeth chattering, shaking with the cold. 

Thomas snorts.

“Hardly. I wasn’t expecting you to be naked…” he drawls, eyebrow arched imperiously. 

“Well someone was complaining that I smell, so.” Alex wades to the edge of the little pool, needs to get warmed up, can feel himself shaking harder, teeth gritted to stop them from chattering as the cold starts to seep into his bones. Thomas doesn’t move. “I’m getting out now, if you don’t mind?” Alex asks, staring at Thomas expectantly. 

“I don’t mind,” Thomas shrugs. 

“Uh…” Alex blinks. “Okay… then…” he can’t stand to stay in this water a second longer, so he wades out, trying to ignore the fact that Thomas is watching him with his arms folded across his chest, looking superior. 

When Alex is out of the deep part, ankle deep and stumbling across rocks, Thomas looks him up and down in a way that makes Alex flush, smug smirk on Thomas’ face.

“It’s fucking _freezing_ , lay off,” Alex snarls. Snatches his towel up as soon as it’s within reach, and wraps it tight around his body, protective. 

Thomas just smirks.

“Tell me you at least did something useful like start a fire,” Alex snaps. 

“I don’t know how,” Thomas singsongs, and he turns and walks back into the woods, leaving Alex to trail behind with nothing but a towel wrapped around his body, armful of wet clothes. 

“We are really going to have to fix that,” Alex pads along behind Thomas, back to the car. Drops his armful of stuff on the hood of the Escalade despite Thomas’ strangled protest, and dries himself vigorously. “Clear out the fire pit and make like, a teepee, with sticks,” he instructs as he towels his hair off, cold air chilling his damp skin. “Then stuff it full of twigs and dry leaves.”

When he pulls the towel down off his head, Thomas is just staring at him. 

“No?” He says.

“What the fuck do you mean no? And stop fucking staring at me you creep. What if I get hurt or killed, then what are you going to do? You need to learn to do some of this shit,” Alex goes around to the trunk, pulls on a pair of thick fleece pyjama pants - patterned with macaroni noodles, of all things - and a clean hoodie, faint scent of a different cologne on the collar. Tosses the towel onto the roof of the car for now. 

Thomas is still just standing there.

“Seriously though,” Alex huffs. He picks up the stick he used last night, and starts clearing out the fire pit again. “At least watch this time?” 

“Fine,” Thomas stands on the other side of the fire pit, perfect, poised, put together, arms folded over his chest, and watches as Alex clears the pit, as Alex fills it with branches and twigs and dried leaves, as Alex carefully coaxes a flame to catch and hold. 

That done, Alex grabs the rope from the trunk and he ties it around the Escalade’s mirror.

“What the fuck are you doing to my car?” Thomas asks.

“Drying my clothes,” Alex says, as he stretches the rope across the small clearing, just beside the fire, and ties it to a low hanging tree branch. 

Hangs his wet things over it to dry.

“Huh,” Thomas grunts, and he heads to the back of the car. Comes back with the pot and nestles it into the fire, can of baked beans already open and poured in, spoons in his hand. 

Alex drags out the tarp and sits on the ground, lets the fire warm him. 

“Watch this. I’m going to go wash.” Thomas hands the spoons to Alex, and walks away. 

Alex doesn’t complain, just sits and lets the fire calm his shaking bones, warm him from the outside in, his hair drying slowly. He gives the beans an occasional stir, and doesn’t comment when Thomas returns, goosebumps covering his skin, hair wet and flattened, towel low on his hips. He hangs his wet things beside Alex’s on the rope, and dresses in tight jeans and a purple, cashmere sweater. Sits down on the tarp beside Alex, and holds out his hand for a spoon. 

Alex hands one over, and pulls the pot off the fire. 

They eat in silence, and it almost feels companionable, it almost feels like unity, it almost feels like friendship. 

Alex thinks that maybe if Thomas never speaks again, he could grow to like him. 

The day is a quiet one, spent boiling water and refilling water bottles, organizing the trunk of the Escalade into something that made more sense, airing out the car, drying their clean clothes, and resting. 

By mid-afternoon, it warms up enough to be comfortable. 

Alex stretches out on his belly on the tarp with the car repair book, reading calmly. 

Thomas disappears into the woods with the bucket, and when he returns, he sets to work washing the Escalade with painstaking, almost tender care. 

Alex looks up from his book, watches Thomas for a long moment. The careful way he cleans every inch of the car, sleeves rolled up, looking absolutely ridiculous in his designer jeans and cashmere, washing the Escalade with soapy water and a balled up T-shirt. But there’s something in the loving way he works, the careful attention, the gentle caress, that makes Alex pause. 

It’s a softness he’s never seen in Thomas before, relaxation in all the lean lines of his body as he scrubs the dirt and leaves from the car’s exterior until it shines, black and glittering in the sun filtering through the trees. 

Thomas looks up, then, water running down his arm and soaking into his sleeve as he looks at Alex. 

“What?” He asks, frowning. 

Alex shakes his head. 

“Nothing.” He drops his gaze back to his book. Hears Thomas mutter something under his breath but can’t quite make out what. Doesn’t matter. 

Feels calm, relaxed. Like maybe this isn’t a wing and a prayer but a real plan, their ticket to surviving until the world settles back down. 

If the world settles back down. 

The almost domestic sounds of Thomas working at the car lull Alex, and if he forgets where they are, what they were doing, he can almost imagine the world is just fine. 

Hours pass, and Alex tends the fire, fills water bottles as the water boils, and reads. 

Thomas finishes washing the Escalade, hangs up the t-shirt, and tosses the dirty, soapy water. 

“I’m tired of driving, let’s stay here tonight,” he suggests. 

Alex looks up at Thomas. Looks up at the sky and the sun starting it’s slow, lazy descent to the horizon. Looks around at the fire and the makeshift clothesline and the shining, clean car. Shrugs. 

“Sure,” he isn’t in the mood to argue. 

So they stay.

Share a measly packet of ramen for dinner. 

“I’m starving. I’m making another one,” Thomas says as he pushes himself to his feet. 

“No you’re not,” Alex snaps. Reaches out and grabs Thomas’ wrist, pulls him back down. The soft skin under his fingers feels electric, feels like warmth, opens up a yawning hunger in Alex’s chest that is so sharp and sudden it nearly knocks him backwards.

Instead, he swallows it whole. Ignores the way it ignites something in his bones, ignores the way the hollow boned, sharp toothed thing in his chest laughs and laughs. Ignores how it hurts to sit silent with it, and lets go of Thomas’ wrist as if he’s been burned. 

In a way, he has. 

“Fuck you, yes I am,” Thomas snaps, gets up again.

Again, Alex snatches his wrist. Is prepared for the electric shock of touch after so long without it this time, and swallows it, sharp as glass, and only winces on the inside.

“No. You’re not. Do you not understand what is _happening_ here!? Don’t you get it? Thomas, the food we have in the back of the Escalade is _all the food we have_. That’s it. When it’s gone, who knows if there’s any more? Unless you know what we can eat in the forest, there is not a damn thing we have once we’re out of supplies. Not a goddamn thing unless we come across a miracle. We have to save the food. We have to stretch it out. Drink more water, shit, I don’t know, but we have to make the food last or we’re done for!” Alex snaps, the day’s calm disappearing as his voice rises, survival instinct burning through his veins, sharp toothed and hungry and out for blood. 

Thomas stares down at him, frozen with his wrist clasped in Alex’s fingers. 

“How do you do it. How the fuck are you sitting there not starving to death? I feel like my stomach is turning in on itself. I’m ready to chew my own arm off!” Thomas says. 

Alex shrugs, and lets Thomas’ wrist go again. 

This time, Thomas doesn’t get up. 

“I’m used to it, I guess. This is the most food I’ve seen in years.” 

Thomas stares at him. 

Alex snorts. Gets up instead and picks up the pot. 

“You really don’t get it, do you? Have you had your head in the sand this entire time? There is no food. There’s nothing. What we have is what we have and it’s just going to get scarcer and harder. What did you think this was, a camping trip? You absolute moron, honestly. How have you not ended up fucking dead yet. You’re delusional, man!” Alex shakes his head, and stalks off, leaving Thomas sitting by the fire, staring into the flames.

When he returns from washing the pot out, the fire is out, all the wet things down from the line. No sign of Thomas. 

When Alex climbs into the passenger seat of the Escalade, Thomas is already curled tight into the pillows and blankets, asleep. 

Alex shrugs, settles in for another cold night, closes his eyes.

“You’re a real prick, you know that?” Thomas says.

Alex snorts again.

“Yep.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> chapter warnings: none

And so it goes.

Days spent driving and bickering. Nights spent curled up in the Escalade. Two of them against each other, most of the time. Two of them against the world, all the time. 

Time spent cooped up in such close quarters begins to take its toll, though, and the arguing escalates, and the food supply begins to dwindle, and the gas supply grows dangerously low, and Alex feels restless and jittery, even though they’re running, even though they’re doing _something_ that doesn’t feel totally fruitless. 

Thomas gets more and more irritable, snaps at Alex constantly, and sleeps more and more.

-

Two weeks into their journey, the Escalade gets a hole in the front left tire.

Thomas loses his temper, and Alex snaps back, and they scream at each other until they’re breathless and shaking with rage, ready to tear each other’s very skin to shreds.

Thomas stalks off, and Alex gets out the car repair book. Sits in the mud beside the punctured tire, and carefully, desperately, vengefully, fixes the tire.

When Thomas comes back, Alex is pumping the repaired tire full of air using the bicycle pump. 

Thomas stares at him for a long moment.

“How did you fix that?” He asks.

“I read the book,” Alex grunts, arms burning with the effort of getting air into the damn tire. “You want to take a turn blowing it back up, asshole?”

Thomas rolls his eyes, but he takes Alex’s place at the pump.

“Fine.” 

-

Two days later, Alex is digging around in the back of the Escalade when he paws through Thomas’ open duffle bag, and comes across two bottles of Dom Perignon champagne. 

Pulls one of them out with a short laugh, and comes around the side of the car with a hand on his hip.

“What the fuck is this!?” He asks, brandishing the bottle.

“Champagne,” Thomas says in that infuriatingly slow, smug drawl. 

“Yeah but…” Alex gestures wildly with the bottle, “ _Why_!?”

Thomas shrugs.

“Why not?” he asks. 

“Because we could have used that space for something useful, like I don’t know, fucking _food!?_ ” Alex throws his hands in the air in disgust, and turns around. Puts the champagne back safely. 

“Champagne is useful,” Thomas protests. 

“Useful for _what?!_ ” Alex shakes his head in disbelief.

“Celebrating?” Thomas suggests, cheeky grin on his face, and Alex can’t help but laugh.

“You are the most ridiculous fucking human I have ever met,” he says, and he throws his hands up in defeat, but he’s smiling and it feels good, and Thomas is smiling, and it’s one of those rare moments when he’s not on the verge of tearing Thomas’ throat out and leaving him for dead where Alex sees how maybe he could actually grow to like Thomas even if he doesn’t stop talking for the rest of his life. 

-

Thomas sits down beside Alex the next night, and asks him to teach him to build a fire.

Alex guides him, careful and slow, and feels a different kind of warmth bloom in his chest when Thomas manages to get the fire lit, something fuzzy edged and almost soft crowding in against the sharp toothed, hollow boned thing. 

It doesn’t like it, and snaps at it, and makes Alex feel a little dizzy and a little claustrophobic, so he goes off in search of water and leaves Thomas tending the fire he managed to start.

-

They get in another screaming argument before bed, and Alex stops asking Thomas to share the bedding. Lies awake and shakes and shakes and shakes as the nights turn colder. Doubles up on socks and shirts. 

It’s not enough.

-

Thomas gets fed up trying to wrestle his hair into cooperation, snaps a comb in half, and hurls it into a river.

Wordlessly, Alex takes his shoulders and pushes him to sit down on a log.

“Get your fucking filthy hands off me,” Thomas snarls.

“Shut the fuck up and sit down, let me help you,” Alex snaps back. 

“What the fuck are you doing to me?!”

“Braiding your hair, now shut up and let me work.”

“If you fuck up my hair, so help me god-”

“-I’m not going to fuck up your hair, calm down-”

“-I will snap you in half and throw you in the river too.”

“Will you shut up already?”

Thomas huffs, and gives up, and Alex braids Thomas’ hair into tight rows, and yeah, okay, he pulls harder than necessary and he takes a sharp sort of satisfaction in the hisses and curses of pain Thomas makes, but in the end, Thomas doesn’t have to fight with his hair anymore, and Alex has to admit he looks good with his hair braided down. Sharper. More real. Less out of place. 

Even if he is still dressed in ridiculous purple.

-

Thomas crafts a snare trap out of the rope, and sets it while Alex watches carefully.

Doesn’t catch anything the first night.

Doesn’t catch anything the second night.

Catches Alex the third morning, and doesn’t set him free, just laughs and laughs and laughs. Eats an entire box of Kraft Dinner to himself and lords it over Alex. Leaves him there all morning, taunts him and teases him until Alex is seeing red, ready to kill. 

Makes Alex beg to be let go. 

Alex gives in and begs around noon, through gritted teeth, spine prickling, rage flooding his senses. 

Stalks off the moment he’s free, and doesn’t return until past nightfall. Takes nasty satisfaction at the almost scared, wide eyed look Thomas gives him when he does return. 

Doesn’t say a word to him for two days. 

-

Thomas doesn’t apologize, but he does rig up a ridiculous looking net, and manages to catch a fish, and that’s almost as good. 

Alex guts and cleans it, seasons it with the spices he tossed in the car in his mad rush to pack anything remotely useful, and wraps it in tinfoil. Tosses it onto the fire to cook.

Nearly faints at the scent of cooking fish, both him and Thomas hanging over the fire, nearly drooling, as they wait for it to finish. 

Inhale it so fast they both burn their tongues. 

Alex sleeps easier that night, still cold, but belly full.

-

And so it goes, and they carry on, and in the back of Alex’s mind, he starts to worry that they’re not going to make it far enough before they run out of gas and food, but he keeps his worries to himself and hopes for a miracle.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Warnings: none

Alex gets his miracle.

An abandoned convenience store, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Door busted in, windows smashed. 

They lock the Escalade, and Alex pulls out the gun and holds it ready even though it’s useless. Edges quietly through the door and blinks in the early morning light inside the store. Empty. 

Thomas follows him in and Alex shakes his head, shoos him back out.

“Don’t leave the car unattended. Just in case,” he hisses. 

Thomas nods, and retreats. 

Alex pads through the store, not much except dust in the front, though he brings Thomas an armful of old newspapers and two cases of water he finds in an overlooked corner. Brings Thomas a new package of garbage bags, and then sets his sights on the locked back room. 

It takes him far too long to pick the lock, but he lets out a whoop of triumph when it clicks open, and he discovers a jackpot of supplies. 

He gets busy bringing things out to the car, more food, water, and best of all, full gas cans. Packs it all out to Thomas, whose eyes light up with glee at the sight of it all. Fills up the car with gas, new oil, makes room in the trunk while Alex jogs back and forth, grabs anything that could possibly be of use and then, just as he’s about to call it quits, snatches up two books from the top of a desk, and lets out another shout of glee. 

A book on edible wild plants, and a book on wilderness survival. 

High on elation, Alex gives in and lets Thomas make two boxes of Kraft Dinner that night, even opens a can of chicken and stirs it in. 

Goes to sleep with a full stomach for the second time in just a few days, and thinks maybe this isn’t so bad.

Maybe, just maybe, it’s the best thing he ever decided to do. 

That night, they lie in the darkness, car tucked away off the road, and Alex stares out the window at the dark sky, listens to the rain on the roof. 

“We should start thinking about finding somewhere to stop,” he says. Isn’t sure if Thomas is still awake, even.

“Aren’t we stopped now?” Thomas asks, voice sleep soft and slow.

“No like. Stop stop. Permanently,” Alex tucks his knees closer to his chest. The gas isn’t going to last forever. Their luck will turn. They’ll have to stop, one way or another. 

Alex would rather be in control of when and where.

“But…” Thomas trails off, hitch of fear in his voice.

“We’re going to run out of gas, Thomas,” Alex says.

Thomas says nothing for a long moment.

“But…” he says again. “What are we going to do, then?”

Alex shrugs a little. Sighs.

“Dunno. Build a house, I guess. Learn to trap food, and grow shit. Live off the land and hope for the best? That’s the only option, far as I can tell,” he looks up at the ceiling, thinks of the city he called home and the friends he used to have and doesn’t feel homesick, not really, just nostalgic. 

“I’m not a fucking farmer,” Thomas says, but there’s no real heat in his words.

“Me either,” says Alex. “But I guess we’ll learn, huh?” 

“I guess,” Thomas says, soft, quiet. 

Alex nods, even though Thomas can’t see it, and despite their differences, Alex is glad Thomas is here, and he’s glad he isn’t alone, and he’s glad they got out and he’s not lying dead in a wet alleyway somewhere, alone.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> chapter warnings: none, though you might get emotional whiplash

The weather starts to turn.

They keep driving, heading more inland than South now, don’t want to hit the border, don’t want to hit the ocean. 

When they wake in the mornings, there’s frost on the car now, breath visible in the early morning air. 

Alex shivers the nights away. 

Doesn’t bother trying to convince Thomas to give him a blanket, has asked countless times by now. 

So he shivers, and curls up tight, and wakes up with stiff, sore joints. 

His throat starts to hurt, makes it hard to swallow, makes him reluctant to eat. So he grits his teeth. Drinks more water. Tries to fight the heavy feeling in his bones. Tries to stifle the cough he can feel sticking in his lungs and throat. Tries to explain away the fever to himself as exhaustion.

Stays closer to the fire, huddled in on himself for warmth.

He feels worse and worse with every passing day, head spinning, dizzy. Hot and cold washing over him in sick waves. 

Thomas doesn’t really seem to notice, too wrapped up in himself. 

Alex gets up in the morning out of sheer stubbornness, his throat on fire, vision blurry, feels delirious, can’t remember where they are and where they’re going. 

Struggles through the day, and falls asleep on the tarp by the fire before the sun sets. 

Wakes up from fever dreams in his usual spot in the passenger seat the next morning, a blanket draped over his body, rain lashing the car windows. Sits up, and his head spins. 

“Hey,” Thomas starts from the back seat. 

Alex barely hears him, opens the car door to the driving rain and gets out.

Tries to stand on shaky feet, muddy water soaking into the socks he forgets to remove.

Barely notices the rain. Barely notices the cold, no different from how cold he is anyways.

Can hear Thomas vaguely, as if from very far away, but can’t make out the question he’s asking. 

Takes a step, and the ground rushes up at him with a deafening roar, blackness rising like an open mouth to swallow him whole. 

~*~

Wakes up still shivering, but not as cold. Groans, and nuzzles against a warm chest, soft fabric against his face. Head hurts. Throat hurts. Feels dizzy and hot and cold and shaking, like someone unscrewed all the important bits inside him, but left them there, loose, to rattle around. 

Lets the darkness drag him back under. 

Dreams of sewers and rain. Dreams of Eliza’s dark hair, Eliza’s sweet smile. Dreams of the ocean. Dreams of hurricanes and wakes up to blackness, tears streaking his cheeks, throat on fire, someone’s voice in his ear hushing him and hushing him until it hushes him right back down into darkness again.

Dreams of a laughing brook and a lean brown body. Dreams of sunlight and fire. Dreams of a gravel road.

Wakes up whimpering, and nearly chokes when he’s forced to swallow salty broth, but it warms his hollow bones, and he sighs back into sleep. 

The fever breaks.

Alex opens his eyes and blinks in surprise. 

Midday light streams in through the windows of the Escalade. 

Alex is curled up in the back seat, tucked tight into the blankets and pillows. Breathes a little easier now. 

Feels warm for what feels like the first time in years. 

Groans, still aches all over, and rubs his face against his arm. 

“Alex?” Thomas’ voice, tight with worry, from the front of the car. 

Alex pushes up onto his elbow, a little dizzy, a little weak. 

“Hey, you’re awake. How’re you feeling?” Thomas’ voice is uncharacteristically soft, almost sweet. 

Alex frowns.

“Like I got hit by a bus. Why am I back here?” he asks.

Thomas crawls awkwardly over the center console and sits near Alex’s head. 

Tired, Alex lets himself sink back down into the blankets and pillows, eyes closing for a moment.

“You were really sick. Why didn’t you say something?” Thomas asks. Reaches out and brushes stray strands of hair from Alex’s forehead. 

Alex flinches away, gives Thomas a strange look.

“I asked for a blanket about five million times, you ass,” He says, little bit of sharp edge returning to his voice. 

“Yeah but… you could have said you were cold. I thought you were just being a jerk,” Thomas shrugs one shoulder helplessly.

Alex raises an eyebrow, doesn’t have the energy yet to fight.

“How could you not notice it’s fucking cold out?” he snaps. 

Thomas sighs.

“Still. You should have said something when you started getting sick,” Thomas says. Reaches down and rests the back of his hand against Alex’s forehead, as if he’s a child. 

“Forgive me for not realizing you cared,” Alex rolls his eyes. Swallows carefully, throat tender. 

Thomas says nothing, stares off as if he’s seeing something farther away than the interior of the car, some deep sadness in his eyes. 

“You scared me…” Thomas says, quiet. “You got out of the car in the rain and took one step and just dropped like a stone. I wasn’t sure you were going to pull through, for a couple of days. Alex… I… fuck. I should have noticed. I should have taken better care of you,” Thomas’ voice sounds very far away, and Alex bristles a little under Thomas’ hand, still resting on his forehead. 

“Fuck off, I’m not a little kid. If you’d have just let me have some blankets in the first place I wouldn’t have gotten sick, you selfish prick,” Alex snaps. 

Thomas yanks his hand away as if burned, and looks down at Alex with an expression so open and wounded that it almost takes Alex’s breath away, the first honest emotion he’s ever seen on Thomas, and it rocks him more than he ever would have thought it would. 

“I saved your life you asshole, you should be thanking me!” he snarls, comes back with venom so fast it nearly gives Alex whiplash. 

“I wouldn’t have needed saving if you’d just given me a goddamn blanket to begin with!” Alex snaps back. 

There’s a deep wound in Thomas’ eyes, but Alex won’t look too closely at it. Can’t look too closely at it. Doesn’t want to know about the things Thomas holds too close in his chest for too long.

“You know what? Fuck you. Fuck you. I should have let you fucking die. You’re an ungrateful, selfish piece of shit, I don’t know why I bothered. Next time you’re so sick and weak you can’t even piss without help, don’t look at me, I’m done!” Thomas throws his hands in the air, throws the car door open, and jumps out. 

Slams it shut so hard the entire car shakes. 

Leaves a stunned silence in his wake. 

Alex doesn’t move for a long moment. 

Finally, he lets out the breath he didn’t realize he was holding, and relaxes into the pillows and blankets. Still feels weak, still feels shaky. 

Can’t help but relish the soft warmth cradling him, best thing he’s felt in weeks. Closes his eyes, sinks down deeper into the warm. Doesn’t want to think about Thomas and his wounded eyes, his honest face. Doesn’t want to think about how maybe he really struck him where everything was real and sharp and fragile this time. 

Doesn’t want to think about any of it.

So he closes his eyes, lets sleep reach up and yank him down again. 

When he wakes again, Thomas is sitting next to him again. Every line of his body is tight with tension, and he looks straight ahead. 

“You need to have something to eat,” Thomas says, voice wooden.

Alex blinks slowly, thinks about eating, thinks about the herculean amount of effort that would take right now. Shakes his head no.

“You missed the part where that wasn’t a question.” Thomas holds a bowl of soup in his lap. “Can you sit up and hold a spoon?”

Alex tries, only because he can’t bear the thought of Thomas feeding him like he’s helpless. Tries, but finds he’s too weak. Whole body shakes, whole body trembles. Gets upright, but can’t stay there, and slumps back down with a shake of his head.

“Not yet,” he says. Tired from the effort. 

Thomas sighs.

“You’re not going to get better if you don’t eat.” he sets the bowl on the centre console, and reaches out to slide his hands under Alex’s arms. 

“Fuck off!” Alex bats Thomas’ hands away, doesn’t want that electric feeling of Thomas’ skin against his skin. Doesn’t want his help, doesn’t want to be helpless. 

Thomas sighs.

“Alex just let me help you for fuck’s sake,” he says, tired, resigned. 

Alex struggles to sit up under his own power. Manages it. 

Sits, shaking, braced on both arms, dizzy and breathless from the effort. Glares at Thomas, but can’t do it, can’t sit up and hold a bowl and eat, already wants to slump back down, body resisting its own weight.

So when Thomas looks away and opens one arm, inviting Alex in, Alex huffs in irritation, scoots over, and fits himself against Thomas. Leans back into his chest and his shoulder with a sigh of relief, trembling a little with the effort.

Closes his eyes and just breathes for a moment, Thomas’ arm looped around him soft and gentle, light enough that Alex can break away if he really wants to. 

“There. See. It’s not so bad,” Thomas says, little hint of teasing in his voice.

Alex smacks his leg.

“Shut up.”

Thomas stretches over, retrieves the bowl from the console and lifts the spoon to Alex’s mouth. 

Alex sighs a long suffering sigh, and opens his mouth. Lets Thomas feed him, Lipton chicken noodle from a packet, the salt and warm broth warming Alex from the inside out. He feels instantly better after just the first mouthful, knows Thomas is right but doesn’t want to admit it. 

Lets Thomas feed him half the bowl before he feels full, and turns his head away. 

“Alright. You can lie back down,” Thomas says, shifts to unwrap his arm from around Alex, and Alex almost doesn’t want to leave the soft, solid warmth of Thomas’ body, feels relaxed and content and ignores the way the sharp toothed, hollow boned thing in his chest resents this, and so it gnaws on the inside of his ribcage, but in his light headed daze, Alex barely feels it.

Lies back down and stretches out on his belly. Closes his eyes. Sighs with pleasure, finally comfortable, ready for sleep to take him. 

His eyes fly open again when Thomas nudges him gently over, and stretches out next to him, pressed close on a seat that is too small for one man to sleep, let alone two. 

“What are you doing?” Alex asks sleepily. 

“I am not sleeping in the front seat, are you out of your mind?” Thomas says. Lifts up the blankets and shimmies under, tiniest, tense space between them.

“I do,” Alex retorts.

“You’re also half my size,” Thomas shoots back. 

For a moment, there’s nothing but tense silence, then Thomas huffs and shifts, drapes his arm around Alex’s waist and tugs him close. 

“There. Comfortable?” He asks. 

Alex feels tense and wide awake and frozen, body pressed tight to Thomas’. Feels like he can’t breathe, feels his heart skipping beats, feels sharp little teeth digging into his ribs from the inside, hollow boned thing getting his attention now, alarm bells in his head because this feels good, it feels too good, and it can’t, it just can’t. 

But it does.

It does and it’s warm and it’s more comfortable that trying not to touch, and Thomas’ arm over his waist is the best thing he’s felt in years and he wants it to last.

“I guess,” is what he says, because he doesn’t want to admit that it’s good, doesn’t want to admit that he likes it, that it feels good to give in and let Thomas touch him, let Thomas hold him. 

“Sleep, Alexander,” Thomas says in response. 

Alex sighs, and relaxes into Thomas, lets his head find a soft space under Thomas’ chin, face tilted up so he can breathe, bare chest against Thomas’ soft t-shirt. 

Falls asleep like that, his fingers curling in the soft fabric of Thomas’ t-shirt at the small of his back and holding on loosely, as if in sleep, he is afraid to lose him.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> chapter warnings: unintentional violence, blood

Alex wakes slowly, still drained and heavy feeling, but clearer headed. Never wants to leave the cocoon of blankets and warmth. 

Even if he is nestled tight against Thomas. 

Even if Thomas’ fingers are winding through his hair, slow and absent minded, fingertips brushing his scalp, smoothing through his hair, gentle touches that Alex can’t help but lean into a little bit. 

For a moment, it feels like peace. 

Alex feels safe, feels warm, feel almost content. 

Keeps his eyes closed and his breathing even and lets Thomas keep touching him, Thomas’ leg draped over his hips, Thomas’ lean body tight and warm against him. His face is tucked into the soft space under Thomas’ chin and he stays, lets himself bask in touch, lets himself enjoy it.

It’s been so long.

He wants to burrow closer, wants to take the hand that rests on the small of Thomas’ back and slide it up under his soft t-shirt. Wants to part his lips and kiss his neck, taste his soft skin. 

Is startled by that thought, that desire.

Chalks it up to being alone together for weeks on end, thinks even the Escalade itself would be looking pretty good right now if that was all he had for company. 

It definitely has nothing to do with the strong chisel of Thomas’ jaw. The soft brown of his skin. The delightful way his soft, thin T-shirts and fitted cashmere sweaters cling to his sculpted frame. 

It definitely has nothing to do with how intelligent Thomas is, how when they get to arguing politics and philosophy across the fire pit, he really makes Alex think, really keeps him on his toes.

It has nothing to do with how, when Thomas relaxes and lets his guard down, his genuine smile is so soft and bright that it makes Alex’s heart beat in double time. 

Nothing to do with any of that. 

It’s just proximity, that’s all. 

It’s just the total lack of other options, that’s all. 

It’s just that for the first time in years, Alex is able to think about something other than just surviving, just finding his next meal. 

Compared to where he’d come from, life in the Escalade is the high life. 

He lest his mind drift, relaxed and loose in Thomas’ arms, Thomas’ fingers still winding through his hair. 

Alex’s body still aches, still feels weak. He sighs softly, shifts, his nose nudging up into Thomas’ jaw. 

Thomas’ fingers still in his hair and he pulls back to peer down at Alex.

“Morning,” He says, all soft, all slow drawl, face open and unguarded, and Alex finds he wants to tread careful, doesn’t want to cause the shutters to come down over Thomas’ face this time. 

“Hi,” he says back, little dumb, doesn’t know what else to say and suddenly feels very aware of all the ways they’re touching. 

“Think you can manage some breakfast? I’ll heat up some water and make oatmeal?” Thomas suggests. His fingers are still wound into Alex’s hair, just still, just soft, just there. 

“Yeah,” Alex replies. Isn’t really hungry but knows he needs to eat. 

Thomas doesn’t move. Just stays where he is, bodies pressed together, gentle rhythm of their breathing. Alex doesn’t complain, doesn’t move, doesn’t want the moment to end even as his skin starts to prickle, can’t help his guard crawling its way back up as the sharp toothed, hollow boned thing in his chest wakes up. Yawns. Digs its claws into the soft underbelly of Alex’s ribs.

He jostles Thomas a little.

“This doesn’t look much like making breakfast,” he whispers, teasing, trying to keep the sharp out of his voice. 

Thomas pulls back and looks at Alex. Crinkles his nose, and for half a second looks so open and honest and vulnerable and adorable that it steals the breath from Alex’s lungs, but then the shutters come down and Thomas pulls himself out of their makeshift bed.

“Stay put,” he says, points a stern finger at Alex.

As if Alex feels well enough to go anywhere. 

Thomas disappears out of the car, and Alex pulls the blankets up over his nose and closes his eyes, revels in the warmth, in the ability to stretch out. Dozes until Thomas returns and nudges him gently over so he can sit down. 

“Okay. Up here,” he says, pats his chest gently. 

Burning with embarrassment that he’s still so weak, that he needs caring for like a child, Alex struggles his way to sitting. He leans back into Thomas’ embrace, head against his solid shoulder, cradled in his warmth. Bristles against the tender closeness of it all, even as he tries to relax and accept it. 

Lets Thomas feed him, cheeks burning bright with shame, with the way the gentle motions stir something deep inside him, make his whole body want to tremble and come apart. 

Turns his face away after a few bites, belly full, still feels alternately hot and cold and green edged dizzy. 

Thomas finishes the oatmeal himself, and lets Alex lie back down. 

“Aren’t you glad I made you learn how to make a fire?” Alex asks. 

Thomas just huffs a little sound that could be agreement or could be annoyance. 

“Shut up, asshole,” he says as he climbs out of the Escalade, but there’s no venom in it, not really. 

Alex sticks out his tongue, and pulls the blanket over his head. Falls back asleep. 

Drifts in dreamless warmth until hands slide under him, shift his body, lift him up. 

He reacts without thinking, lashes out with a fist and a snarl, and nails Thomas right in the face so hard that Thomas drops him back onto the seats.

“Ow, what the fuck!?” Thomas yelps, hands flying to his face. 

Alex scrambles upright, sits dizzy and panting and glaring at Thomas, eyes wide. 

“Shit, fuck, you startled me why the fuck would you do that!?” Alex snaps, heart racing in his chest, the hollow boned, sharp toothed thing all snarl and fury, all shake and claws. 

“I was just moving you, god damn it, you were asleep, fuck, you didn’t have to fucking punch me!” Thomas yells. 

“Where the fuck were you moving me too!?” Alex’s voice cracks on adrenaline. 

“The back!” Thomas snaps back. Carefully lowers his hands, bloody nosed and puffy eyed. Alex can’t help but let out a low whistle, impressed with himself. 

Thomas glowers at him. 

“You could have been anyone. I was asleep! How was I supposed to know it was you!?” Alex snaps, hackles rising. 

Thomas looks at him like he has two heads. 

“Who the fuck else would it be? There’s no one out here.” He retreats out of the Escalade, comes back a moment later with a t-shirt crunched up against his bloody nose. “If you broke my fucking nose I’ll drown you in the river.”

“I didn’t break your fucking nose,” Alex snaps, irritated. Hates being woken up, still feels like shit, hates being startled, heart still racing. “You almost gave me a heart attack why would you pick me up when I’m asleep, fuck, why pick me up at all!?”

“Because-” Thomas pinches his nose and closes his eyes, huffs angrily, “-fuck this hurts. Because if we’re sleeping together it makes more sense to sleep in the back. I rearranged everything. It’ll be more comfortable.” 

It’s Alex’s turn to stare at Thomas like he has two heads. 

“Why… why would we sleep together,” he says, voice flat. 

“Because I’m not having you get so sick you nearly die again, Alexander,” Thomas snaps, voice flat, eyes fixed on a point just outside of the vehicle, jaw tight.

“Oh come on I did not almost die, you’re being dramatic,” Alex says, incredulous. 

“Yes you fucking did Alexander.”

“I did not.”

“You fucking did you asshole,” Thomas hisses. Glares at Alex with such venom that Alex is struck momentarily silent. “You almost died, and you are sleeping with me from now on because it’s going to get colder and I am not having you almost die on me again, you’re not leaving me alone out here and god damn it I am not _doing_ this again because I can’t fucking take it if one more goddamn person I care about goes and fucking _dies_ on me!” Thomas is shouting by the end of it, hands shaking, blood dripping sluggishly from his nose. 

“Thomas-” Alex starts, sits up, knows he’s crossed a line.

“Fuck off, Alex,” Thomas snarls. Steps out of the Escalade and slams the door behind him.

Alex sits in stunned silence. 

After a long moment, he gets up. Pulls a hoodie over his head, the one he wore the first few days, scent of cologne mostly faded by now. He opens the door and steps outside on bare feet, ground wet and cold. Has to steady himself against the side of the Escalade as his head swims and his vision blurs. 

Thomas is sitting by the fire, back to Alex, hunched tight against the chill wind. 

“Thomas?” Alex asks. Takes a step away from the Escalade. Feels wobbly and brand new, like he’s forgotten how to walk. 

Thomas’ head whips around, and Alex is startled to see the sheen of tears on Thomas’ cheeks, brimming bright in his dark eyes. 

“Get back in the car Alex,” Thomas snaps.

“But-” Alex takes another step towards Thomas, reaches out a hand, “you’re crying…” 

“Fuck off. I said fuck off, god you’re fucking relentless get the fuck back in the car _right now_!” Thomas shouts.

Alex stops. Stares at Thomas as Thomas scrubs the back of his hand over his face angrily. 

“ _Go back inside!_ ” Thomas’ voice cracks, and it sounds like he’s a half step from shattering, and Alex stares for a moment, torn, and relents. Climbs back into the relative warmth of the Escalade, and has to sit still with his eyes closed for a long moment.

When he finally feels steady enough to open his eyes, Alex looks over at the trunk space, and blinks to find it empty of everything save an inflated air mattress. Where did that come from? 

He looks out the window, looks at Thomas’ back, squared, tense shoulders, and all of their stuff strewn all over the ground. It’s the first real initiative Thomas has shown, and Alex blinks a little, stares at Thomas’ back, and huffs. 

Slowly, carefully, Alex shifts the bedding off the seat and onto the air mattress. Slides onto it himself, and pushes the back of the seat until it folds back up. 

Exhausted from that small effort, Alex curls back under the blankets, and falls asleep. 

Doesn’t wake up again until Thomas is crawling in beside him, cold fingered and shivering. He lies down without saying a word, and pulls Alex close, running a gentle hand down his back. 

Alex shifts. Tilts his head up slightly. 

“Thomas?” He asks, voice soft. 

“Shut up, Alexander,” Thomas says back, but he doesn’t sound angry, he just sounds tired. 

“I’m sorry,” Alex says. 

“Shut up, Alexander,” Thomas repeats.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> chapter warnings: a lot of feelings.

Alex wakes up with his nose buried in that soft spot under Thomas’ chin again. 

Thomas’ breathing is shallow and even, and Alex feels clearer headed, warm, safe. Thinks of last night, and the rawness in Thomas’ face, the deep seated pain there. Knows he’s not the most perceptive, knows that was always a point of contention with Eliza too. Sighs softly, and slides his hand down Thomas’ back, extracts it from his shirt. 

“Thomas?” He asks, soft.

“Shut up, Alexander,” Thomas whispers.

Alex pulls back enough to look at Thomas, his head resting on Thomas’ arm. 

Thomas looks back at him, tired and open and sad. Doesn’t move his hand from Alex’s hip, but doesn’t hold him in place either. 

For a long moment, neither of them move. 

Alex watches Thomas, and thinks about how this might be the only person he ever sees again for the rest of his life. Thinks about how this could be the end and they’re just prolonging it, just fighting the inevitable. 

Feels unexpectedly glad that it’s Thomas he’s here fighting it with, and thinks that if there’s a fighting chance, they have it. 

Doesn’t have a clue what Thomas is thinking. 

Thomas sighs. Lets his gaze drop. 

“Alex…” he says, voice soft. “I…” he huffs. Shakes his head a little. “Forget it.”

Alex frowns. 

“No, it’s okay, tell me?” He prompts. Feels like they’re on the cusp of something, and feels like it’s so fragile he can’t even breathe for fear of shattering it. 

“Nothing. Just. Don’t die on me, okay?” Thomas asks. 

Alex opens his mouth to press. Closes it again. Reaches out and brushes his thumb over Thomas’ cheek, just under the spectacular black eye blooming there. 

“Okay. Sorry about your face,” he says instead.

Thomas huffs a little laugh. Shrugs.

“I know not to pick you up when you’re asleep, now,” he replies. 

“Yeah… sorry,” Alex repeats.

“Want breakfast?” Thomas asks. 

Alex shakes his head.

“No. Not yet. Just… stay here?” He asks. Closes his eyes as he says it so he doesn’t have to look at Thomas’ face, and rolls over onto his other side, facing away. 

Thomas says nothing, but after a moment, his arm slips around Alex’s waist, and he shifts close, body curled around Alex’s back. 

They lie in silence for a long moment, and Alex stares at nothing, relaxes into the beat of Thomas’ heart against his back, the comfortable weight of his arm around him, and can’t remember the last time he just lay with someone for the sake of lying with someone, and lets himself just relax and enjoy it. 

They lie like that all morning, just silent, just touching, just breathing, and Alex didn’t realize how badly he just needed touch. 

“Right after…” Thomas starts, startling Alex with the sound of his voice after so much silence. 

Alex goes to twist, and Thomas stops him with a hand. 

“Don’t. Just… let me tell you this,” he says, voice heavy. “Right after the grid went down… my best friend got really sick. James… James was always unhealthy, and he sorta knew, and, fuck…” Thomas trails off, just breathes for a moment, and Alex says nothing, lets the silence stretch. “I tried to save him, but I’m not a fucking doctor. There was only so much I could do. He was everything I had left, and I couldn’t fucking save him.”

There it is, laid out bare in the air between them, and dammit Alex was never good at this stuff, was never good with big things and big feelings and feels awkward trying to hold it in his hands. 

“Thomas…” he starts.

“Shh. It’s enough just to say it out loud. Just… don’t die on me,” Thomas says. 

“Okay,” Alex says, quiet.

Thomas lets out a long breath, and holds Alex a little bit tighter, and Alex lets him. Closes his eyes and braces himself against how good it feels, and lets him. 

After a moment, Alex shifts, finds Thomas’ hand with his and threads their fingers together. Squeezes gently. 

“It’s scary, though,” Alex says. Closes his eyes and swallows against the memory. “When you’re losing the last person you love, and you know there’s nothing you can do, but you do everything you can think of anyways, only to lose them in the end.”

Another long silence, and then-

“Who?” Thomas asks.

“My mom,” Alex says. 

Thomas sighs. Squeezes Alex’s hand.

“I was so scared. I knew I couldn’t save him, but dammit I had to try. He was the better half of me for my whole life. It’s just… fuck. I feel like a total ass saying this, because I survived, but… fuck, Alex, it wasn’t _fair_.” Thomas’ voice goes tight and tense and he squeezes Alex’s hand tight. 

Alex snorts. 

“You’re not an ass. Not for saying that, anyways. It’s not fucking fair. It’s not fair that some assholes who held all the power fucked everything up and caused this to happen and left you stuck trying to do something you don’t have the skills for. It’s not fucking fair that my mom got sick and no one gave a shit. It’s not fucking fair that you got to survive and your friend didn’t and you’re stuck for the rest of your life knowing that if only you’d been _enough_ , he’d still be here. It’s not fair, Thomas. It’s not. You’re allowed to be angry about that,” he says in a rush, heat in his voice, fingers tightening on Thomas’, because dammit he knows what that pain feels like. 

Thomas goes still and quiet behind him. 

“...thank you,” he whispers. 

Alex shrugs a little, feels embarrassed and awkward after that outburst, and he’s glad he’s facing away, glad he doesn’t have to look at Thomas’ face and see emotion laid bare there, glad he doesn’t have to lie inches from him and think about how he wants to kiss him, because now is really not the time, but dammit, he wants to. 

Before he can even think of rolling over, Thomas pulls away, sits up.

“I’ll go make breakfast,” he says, and he climbs out the back of the car, and leaves Alex alone. 

The day is a quiet one. Alex feels well enough to get up and about, so he does laundry and Thomas tries to fish, complains that Alex is scaring them all away. 

Thomas tries to fashion new traps while Alex rests and reads the book on edible plants, hoping like hell to be able to supplement the food they have with wild plants, because they’re coming into winter and Alex knows they’re going to starve to death if they can’t start saving what little canned goods they have left. 

Thomas actually catches a fish in the evening, and they go to sleep with full bellies, curled tight in each other’s arms.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> chapter warnings: *****animal death*****, emeto, Escalade mistreatment, and smut, sort of. 
> 
> (.... these things are not all related.)

They keep driving. 

Alex gets stronger with every passing day. The back seat is so full of stuff that they have to empty it out to find anything, but it’s worth it for the extra space at night. 

They find another corner store and raid it, not as bountiful as the first, but it tops up their food and gas supply, and Thomas gets the bright idea to strap the gas cans to the roof of the car so they have more room in the car for food. Alex looks at him like he has two heads when he suggests it, because it means putting things on the _roof_ of the _Escalade_ , but Thomas just shrugs a little, and gets to work. 

It marks a little shift in Thomas. 

He starts pitching in more. He perfects his traps, and they catch a rabbit. 

Thomas can’t bring himself to kill it, gets as far as picking it up by its neck before he drops it and stumbles away, retching.

“I can’t do it, I can’t, fuck, it _looked_ at me Alex,” he wails. 

Alex snorts sharp through his nose in what isn’t really a laugh, and grabs the poor, terrified rabbit. Breaks its neck with one quick twist of his hands and a sickening snap. 

“Oh god,” Thomas groans, and actually vomits, bent double, hands on his knees, shaking a little from head to toe. 

Doesn’t really recover until later, shaken and pale and quiet for the rest of the day. Alex catches him staring at nothing several times, hands shaking, jaw tight. When Alex cooks the rabbit for dinner, Thomas can’t bring himself to eat it, not that first time. 

Alex never mentions it. Can’t help but want to protect the last evidence he’s seen of soft places left in the world, and doesn’t _want_ Thomas to get so dulled and used to this that he grows comfortable snapping the neck of a living thing, because he shouldn’t have to.

If Thomas curls a little closer to Alex that night, holds him a little tighter, shakes a little until he falls asleep, well. Alex lets him, and twines their fingers together, and doesn't mention it. Tries to breathe around the brand new, fragile protectiveness blossoming in his chest. 

~*~

Alex is starting to feel like they are the only two people left in the world. 

They still fight more than they don’t, but in their quiet moments, Alex learns how intelligent Thomas is, and he can’t help but begin to respect him a little bit for it. 

They grow more comfortable sleeping entwined, and Alex’s mood improves just from not being cold all the time. 

After one particularly scathing row first thing in the morning, Alex stalks off into the woods to check the traps and search for some plants they can eat. Has been mildly successful in finding tubers and cattails and roots to supplement their diet. 

He relaxes as he searches, can’t help it when Thomas riles him up, he just gets so deep under his skin, and Alex can’t help but react. 

The traps are all empty, so Alex gathers them up, annoyed that they didn’t catch anything. 

But he finds a bird’s nest and swipes the eggs, doesn’t spare a moment to feel guilty about it, and by the time he starts back to the car he has a respectable meal in the bucket. 

He lets his mind wander as he walks, so he doesn’t react right away when he steps into the small clearing they’re parked in to see Thomas leaning back against the car, head tilted back, jeans undone and shoved down his hips. He has his cock in his hand, stroking himself with quick, urgent strokes, lower lip caught in his teeth. 

Alex stops and stares for a long moment, mouth going dry at the sight of Thomas like this, caught in the grip of pleasure, eyes closed, the soft sound he makes going straight to Alex’s cock. 

Alex feels frozen, can’t do anything but stare at the way Thomas’ hand moves over his hard cock, the tilt of his head, the exposed length of his neck. 

Abruptly, Alex can’t deny how badly he wants his mouth there, sucking and nipping at his exposed skin. How badly he wants to bat Thomas’ hand away and replace it with his own hand, stroke his hot, silky skin until he’s dripping precome, and then stroke him, slick and fast, until he comes. 

Can’t help but wonder what kind of sounds Thomas makes when he gets close, what kind of sound he’d make when he came, if it would be Alex’s name on a punched out breath, or a high wordless moan… 

His cock twitches in his jeans at the suggestion, and Alex’s breath catches and it’s loud in the silence of the forest and Thomas’ eyes snap open. 

His hand stills, the head of his cock poking through his curled fingers, and he stares at Alex with wide eyes and an open mouth, breathing hard.

Alex stares back, feels like he left his brain somewhere back in the forest. 

“Alex…” Thomas whispers, voice low and throaty. Whispers it like a suggestion, like an invitation. 

Alex’s mind comes back online and he feels flooded with ice, hell, he doesn’t even _like_ Thomas, why the fuck was he just thinking about jerking him off?!

Abruptly, Alex realizes how far down he’s let his guard drop, how much he’s let Thomas in, how terrible of an idea that is. How everyone he lets close leaves him, and why would Thomas be an exception, and sure they could fuck but fucking is never just fucking and does Alex really want to go there with the last person he might ever see on Earth? 

“Alex?” Thomas asks, voice a little less sure. Lets go of his cock and tugs the front of his shirt down over himself. 

He can’t. 

“Get a fucking room, Jesus Christ!” Alex snarls, stalks past Thomas, can’t shake the image of him stroking himself, wants nothing and everything to do with it all at once, and can’t reconcile his head with his heart and his cock. 

Thomas swears under his breath and yanks his jeans back up, jerking upright. 

Alex slams the bucket down near the fire.

“There aren’t any rooms out here in the fucking wilderness, in case you hadn’t noticed,” Thomas snaps. 

Alex hears the sound of his zipper doing up, tries not to think about it, can’t help but think about it, fuck. 

“Then don’t, fuck, don’t _do_ that!” Alex won’t look at Thomas, doesn’t want to see his face, look in his eyes, have to see his plush lips, hard lines of his body, can’t unsee what he just saw, and hates the way it stirs something deep inside him. 

“Excuse me for wanting one tiny moment of pleasure in the middle of this hell!” Thomas snarls, all frayed edges, all falling apart, no composure to be found. 

“Fuck you, I saved your goddamn life!” Alex whirls, spitting mad. Of all the ungrateful, self absorbed- “You think I’m enjoying this? You think this is supposed to be fun? Wake the fuck up already you jackass!” 

“You’re a real prick, you know that? How could any of this be fun when I’m stuck here with you, _and_ , I saved your fucking life right back. We’re even, okay? We don’t owe each other one god damn thing!” Thomas snatches the keys off the hood of the Escalade, and Alex realizes too slow, reacts too slow, and Thomas is yanking the driver’s side door open, and Alex is standing beside the fire still not realizing what’s happening. “Fuck you, Alexander.”

Thomas gets in the Escalade.

Thomas slams the door shut behind him. 

Thomas starts the engine, and just as Alex realizes what he’s doing, realizes what’s happening, Thomas throws the car in reverse and stomps on the gas and peels out so quickly the tires squeal and he sprays mud and grass everywhere, and then he’s gone, and Alex is alone.

Alex stares at the spot where the Escalade was. 

Waits, for a long moment, for Thomas to return.

He doesn’t.

Alex huffs in annoyance and sits down on a rock beside the fire pit. Puts the eggs at the edge of the pit and hopes they’ll cook that way. 

They do, eventually, and he eats two of them. Sets the other two aside for Thomas. 

Nibbles at tubers and cattails. 

Paces around the edge of the clearing.

Would reset the traps if he knew how, but they are Thomas’ invention, and he can’t quite grasp how they work to set them up. 

The sun starts to dip lower in the sky, and Alex starts to worry.

He’s dressed in his own jeans, and one of Thomas’ cashmere sweaters. 

He’s barefoot.

He feeds the fire, and sits back down. Thinks about saving his strength.

The sky starts to turn orange and pink.

Alex eats the remaining eggs and rests his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. Has nothing in the world right now except this fire and the unloaded gun in the waist of his jeans. 

As the sunset blooms across the sky in brilliant colour, Alex starts to think Thomas might not be coming back.

Alex looks around. Thinks about how this isn’t the place he wants to die, how he’ll stay by this fire all night, and in the morning start walking. How fruitless that effort might be, but how he can’t just lie down here and let the earth take him back. 

The forest is quiet. 

Alex picks at a scab on the back of his hand. 

Alex feels keenly aware of the absence of Thomas.

Alex abandoned. Again. 

Alex alone.


	13. Chapter 13

Alex alone.

Alex alone in the dark with a campfire. 

Alex alone with dirty hands.

Alex stares into the flickering flames and shivers, and he knows he pushed it too far but he can’t help it. He wraps his arms around his knees and thinks about how this is the part where he’s supposed to have learned something from his past mistakes, but all he can think is that he’s cold and he’s tired and he’s alone, again.

All he can think about is that he doesn’t know what to do with his hands when he’s not making them into fists.

All he can think about is that he doesn’t know what to do with his words when he’s not using them as weapons.

Alex tries to tuck his toes up into the hems of his jeans, and it doesn’t really work, and he wishes he was wearing Thomas’ pajama pants so he could fit his feet inside. 

He should get up and move, he knows, so that he doesn’t freeze to death. Or is it stay still?

He can’t remember, isn’t sure he ever knew, but he doesn’t want to move from the dwindling fire so he scoots a little closer, and stays put. 

Can’t see a thing out past the light from his fire, but the only thing out there brave enough to approach fire is people, and Alex hasn’t seen other people since he and Thomas fled. 

Now, Alex isn’t sure if he’ll ever see another person ever again. 

Fear tries to set in, but the sharp toothed, hollow boned thing in Alex’s chest bares its teeth and snarls, and they reach an impasse, trying to stare each other down. 

Alex stares at the flames and thinks again about Thomas with his jeans around his thighs and his cock in his hand. It makes his skin prickle, too hot, and too tight, and what would have been the harm in stepping in close, in offering the use of his own hand, in finding out what Thomas’ mouth tastes like?

As if summoned by the very thought, the roar of an engine breaks through the silence and Alex jumps to his feet and has the gun in his hand before he even realizes he’s moved, and it doesn’t do him a lick of good because the Escalade’s headlights blind him and he’s helpless to do anything except throw an arm over his eyes and stumble backwards, gun useless in his fingers.

The engine shuts off and the headlights die, and Alex can’t see anything but white light burning his retinas, and he’s spitting swear words and blinking rapidly, trying to get his vision back. 

He hears a door slam as his vision starts to clear. 

Hears the trunk open, and slam shut again a moment later. 

Blinks away the spots in his vision, and the Escalade is back and Thomas is nowhere to be seen. 

Alex stares at the Escalade, and he feels relief and he feels angry and he feels a little weak in the knees and he feels like he doesn’t know what to do with his mouth or his hands. 

So he stands in the dark for a long moment like an idiot, until the back door of the Escalade opens, and Thomas sticks his head out.

“Get in the fucking car,” he snaps, and disappears again.

Alex huffs a soft sound, and smothers the fire. 

He stares at the fire pit in the dark until he’s sure it’s nothing but dirt and ash, and then he tips his head back and looks up at the stars, and he feels small and strange inside, and he feels like he wants to crawl into the back of the Escalade and lose himself in the heat of Thomas’ mouth and he’s not sure when that happened but it terrifies him. 

Instead, he walks around to the back of the car and gets in, closes the trunk behind him and glares at the lump of blankets that is Thomas, suddenly white hot with rage.

“What the fuck was that?!” Alex yanks the blankets down from Thomas’ shoulders. 

Thomas grabs them and yanks them back up without saying a word, or otherwise so much as acknowledging Alex’s presence. 

“I asked you a question,” Alex snaps.

“No, you really didn’t,” Thomas replies, and his voice sounds like it weighs a million pounds. 

“I… what?” Alex blinks. 

“You didn’t ask me a question. My answer wouldn’t have mattered one bit, you’re just looking for an opening to yell at me, and quite frankly Alexander, I’m not doing it. Not right now. Go to sleep,” Thomas’ voice is muffled by the blankets, and he doesn’t move at all. 

“What- Fuck off, you fucking left me here! How was I supposed to know you were coming back for me?! That was a real dick move, Thomas, fucking hell. Give me the keys!” Alex tries to yank the blankets back down off of Thomas’ head, and Thomas holds them tight where they are so he can’t, and Alex lets out a growl of frustration because he doesn’t know if, if he could get the blankets off, he wants to punch Thomas, or kiss him. 

Thomas says nothing, and after a moment, Alex takes a deep breath, starts in on him again. 

“Give me the fucking keys! How can you just lie there? You fucking _abandoned_ me and it’s not fucking funny!” 

Still, Thomas does nothing.

“Are you even listening to me right now!?” Alex throws his hands in the air, doesn’t know what else to do with them. 

“Nope,” Thomas replies, and his voice sounds a million miles away, and Alex doesn’t know what to do with that, can’t fight a fight if he’s the only one fighting it. 

“Well fuck you then,” he finishes, lamely. 

He lies down with his back to Thomas and pulls the blankets up to his chin. Stares into the darkness and wants to open his mouth and say something just to break the silence.

Stays silent, and stares at nothing until sleep reaches up and yanks him down.


	14. Chapter 14

Alex wakes up with his nose back in that soft, warm space under Thomas’ chin. 

Moments like this, in the early morning before the sun is truly up and Thomas is still asleep with his arms around Alex, leg thrown over Alex’s hip, holding him tight, the whole world feels soft and brand new, and Alex can see how a person could get used to this. 

He sighs softly, feels too comfortable in Thomas’ arms. Doesn’t really want to get used to this, doesn’t want to let his guard down, doesn’t want to acknowledge how easy it would be, from here, to fall. 

Doesn’t want to acknowledge how good Thomas smells, beneath the earthy smell of pine needles and the cheap corner store deodorant that he whines about using. 

Doesn’t want to acknowledge how strong his arms feel around Alex, how secure Alex feels in his embrace, how he wants to melt into Thomas’ touch and stay like this forever. 

Thomas murmurs something in his sleep, and tugs Alex closer.

Alex’s heart skips a beat and he swallows hard, and he’s still fucking pissed at Thomas for leaving, but underneath that… 

Yeah.

He can’t deny that this is nice.

Can’t.

But he’s damn well going to try. 

Before he can decide to pull away, he feels Thomas go rigid against him.

“Get off me,” he hisses. 

“You’re on me,” Alex whispers back.

Thomas sits up like he’s been shocked, leaving Alex suddenly untouched, blankets pooled around Thomas’ waist. 

Without another word, Thomas gets out of the car and slams the door on Alex. 

Alex sits for a minute in silence, then wriggles out of bed and steps into a drizzly, shitty day. 

“Ugh,” he huffs. 

Thomas is already gone, the bundle of ropes he used to fashion traps gone with him.

Alex shrugs, and doesn’t even want to think about trying to get a fire going in this, but sets out the bucket and the pot to collect water they can later boil. 

Climbs back into the Escalade, dries his feet on a towel, and curls up with the book about plants. 

Thomas comes back a while later. Digs around in the back seat and does… something… to the outside of the Escalade with the tarp, draping the world in blue light. 

He climbs in, dries his hair and feet and strips out of his wet clothes right in front of Alex, and Alex can’t help but stare a little at all the lean lines of Thomas’ body, not as muscular as he was weeks ago, but still so stunning to look at… 

He doesn’t really realize he’s staring until Thomas turns around as he tugs on the Kraft Dinner pajama pants and their eyes meet and Thomas looks wide open and vulnerable for a split second before the shutters slam down and he just looks pissed. 

“You wanna close that mouth?” He snaps. 

Alex shuts his mouth so fast his teeth clack together, and his cheeks burn with humiliation, not that he was staring, not even that he got caught staring…

That he got caught _wanting_.

Alex huffs and returns to his book. Reads the same paragraph about some plant or another three times and doesn’t retain a single word of it. 

Thomas doesn’t put a new shirt on, just stretches out on his back on the air mattress, goosebumps on his bare chest, and closes his eyes. 

Alex looks sidelong at Thomas over the top of his book. Watches his chest rise and fall with his breathing, looks at the tiniest hint of what might be a smirk on his plush lips, and thinks he’s doing it on purpose, the asshole. Knows how good he looks, and lords it over Alex.

Alex resolutely forces his gaze back to his book. 

The silence that stretches between them is icy cold, and for once Alex doesn’t push, almost feels grateful for it. 

He doesn’t want to reach across the chasm between them, feels like he can breathe a little bit easier for the space, feels safer like this.

He forces himself to read, but finds he can’t keep from glancing over at Thomas, and he knows Thomas knows, and it makes his skin prickle with desire and anger. 

But God.

The stark line of Thomas’ hip bones, the way the soft fabric of the pajama pants rides low on his hips, the way it drapes over his cock… 

Fuck.

Alex has to swallow hard and look away. 

Spends the rest of the day trying hard not to look at Thomas, and picks another fight with him over dinner, can’t take the silence, can’t take the tension. 

Can’t take the irresistible urge to touch.

They settle in for sleep early, because what else is there to do inside the Escalade in the dark? 

Well.

Alex can think of a thing or two…

He shuts that thought down firmly, turns on his side away from Thomas, and wishes it wasn’t so cold and damp out, because there’s no way he’s going to stay warm without Thomas’ body heat pressing into him. 

Thomas is facing the other way, but he’s not shivering like Alex, doesn’t have his whole body held tense and tight like Alex. 

“Doesn’t it get tiring, Alex?” Thomas asks in the dark, and the hostility is mostly gone from his voice, and it makes Alex’s hackles rise defensively on instinct.

“What?” he asks, doesn’t have a clue what Thomas is talking about.

“Coming at the whole world like it’s a fight, all the time,” Thomas says. 

Alex almost sits up, mouth opening on a protest.

“I don’t-” 

“See?” Thomas says mildly.

Alex shuts his mouth. Exhales hard through his nose. 

“Shut up,” Alex says, because he can’t think of anything witty to say.

He can almost hear Thomas rolling his eyes. 

In the silence that follows, Alex feels something in his chest come loose and unhinged. Feels a door crack open, feels a little breeze enter.

The sharp toothed, hollow boned thing shivers at the first feel of it, and lies flat behind his heart, bewildered.

“The whole world never gave me much indication that this wasn’t a fight,” Alex says, and he shrugs, and he feels cold for the telling of it, like he’s admitted to something he never really meant to admit to. 

“Did you ever think to let it?” Thomas asks. 

“Why would I?” Alex snaps, and there he is again, picking up a fight where there wasn’t one, making his words into weapons because he feels safer that way. “Everytime I do, I get fucking abandoned.”

Thomas snorts, actually snorts, and shifts over. Wraps his arm firmly around Alex’s waist and tugs him in tight against his chest, and Alex goes stiff all over, doesn’t want to melt back into Thomas’ warmth but can’t deny that he’s shivering. Doesn’t want to enjoy Thomas’ arm around him, especially not right now, not when they’re talking like this, but can’t help that it feels solid and strong and safe.

“You don’t get fucking abandoned Alexander, you stick barbs in every soft thing you find until you’ve chased it all away.” There’s no heat in Thomas’ words, and Alex still wants to open his mouth and turn it into a fight but he’s listening now, so he doesn’t say anything, just sits with sharp words on his tongue and a body that trembles not just from the cold. 

“I do not,” Alex huffs.

“You do,” Thomas says, and he squeezes a little, and his chin finds a comfortable spot on top of Alex’s head. “I couldn’t even kill a rabbit for our dinner, Alex, what makes you think I could have actually left you here to die?” 

“Why wouldn’t you?” Alex retorts, staring into the darkness at nothing, hating the way his heart clenches and aches, wishing Thomas wasn’t touching him. 

“I don’t hate you,” Thomas says.

“You don’t?” Alex frowns. 

“No. Go to sleep Alex.” Thomas tucks his arm more securely around Alex, doesn’t let him go, doesn’t give him a choice. 

Alex sighs, and he doesn’t like this feeling of being cracked open because all the parts of him that aren’t used to feeling the breeze ache at its touch now, but Thomas is warm and solid behind him and his whole body feels bruised but it still feels nice to sink back into it and relax. He tries not to tremble, tries not to want to pull away, to put walls back where they’ve stood for years and years, and he recognizes even as he struggles with this, that he’s _still_ trying to fight, but right now he’s only fighting with himself.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> chapter warnings: NSFW! Smut, dub con I guess, a really awkward situation, hypothermia 
> 
> this chapter also contains my favourite sentence that I've ever written in my life.

Thomas’ mouth is hot and wet as it moves over Alex’s chest, licking and sucking and biting. 

Alex feels like he’s coming apart at the seams, methodically unravelled by the scrape of Thomas’ teeth over his ribs, counting them down three, two, one as he goes. Punctuation in the form of a sucking kiss that may or may not leave a mark. 

Thomas’ hands span wide over Alex’s hips, fingertips nearly touching, palms pressing down hot and firm, pinning Alex in place. 

Alex’s cock rests on his belly, on Thomas’ still fingers, aching and dripping and needing. 

He squirms, tries to arch up, to get some sort of friction. Desire from his mouth in desperate little pants. 

“Ah-ah,” Thomas chides, voice low and hot and quiet. 

Alex’s breath catches in his throat and he feels like he’s burning up from the inside out and he feels like he’s a half step away from unravelling completely, held together only by the press of Thomas’ hands on his hips. 

Thomas sucks a line of kisses down Alex’s stomach, lips nearly brushing the head of his cock, then kisses back up, scrapes his teeth back up Alex’s ribs, one, two, three, counted out in soft gasps from Alex’s parted, desperate lips. 

He grazes his teeth over Alex’s nipple, and Alex writhes and moans, bucks his hips up, desperate for friction. 

“Please, please,” he whines, breathless and needy, feels like Thomas has had him pinned down like this for hours and days, needy and wanting. 

Thomas ignores him, just slides one of his hands around to Alex’s ass, tugs him over so he’s straddling Thomas’ thigh, their legs interlocking. 

Alex groans low in his throat, can’t resist the friction, and rocks his hips, rutting against Thomas’ thigh. The soft fabric of his stupid Kraft Dinner pajama pants feels like heaven against Alex’s aching cock and he moans, loud, needy.

“Alexander,” Thomas says, his hand loose on the flat of Alex’s back. 

“Thomas,” Alex pants, “Nngh. Need you… your fingers…” 

Alex feels like he’s going to die if he doesn’t get to come, if he doesn’t get to feel that exquisite stretch of something filling him up, needs it all and needs it now. 

“Alexander what are you doing?” Thomas asks.

Alex can’t help it, feels lost to the friction, pleasure building in his gut as he leaks precome into the fabric of his pajama pants, and he’s half a second away from coming in his pants like a teenager just from humping Thomas’ leg, but he doesn’t care because it just feels so goddamn good. 

“Thomas,” Alex pants again, needs him to do something, to move that hand that’s now just _hovering_ , not even fucking _touching_ him, “finger me,” he whines, desperate, needy. 

Thomas’ cock twitches against Alex’s thigh, hard length of it - and fuck, there’s a _lot_ of it - pressed flush to Alex’s leg as Alex’s hips rock a little faster, cock dragging against soft fabric and the firm muscle of Thomas’ thigh. 

It’s enough. 

Alex’s hips start to stutter as his orgasm slams into him and he starts to come.

“Alex! Wake up!” Thomas snaps.

Alex wakes up, but it’s too late, there’s nothing he can do to stop it and he’s coming in his pants like a teenager, can’t swallow the loud groan as pleasure wrings his body out. He presses his face to Thomas’ chest, hips jerking, face burning with embarrassment. 

Thomas’ hand hovers over Alex’s lower back and he lies absolutely rigid beneath Alex as Alex rides out his orgasm. 

Alex goes still, breathing hard. 

“If you got jizz on me I am going to strangle you,” Thomas says drily. 

Alex can feel Thomas’ cock against his thigh, still rock hard, but when he looks up, Thomas’ expression is one of vague boredom and distaste, and his hand still hovers like he doesn’t quite want to touch Alex. 

“Sorry,” Alex whispers, feels aflame with embarrassment, can’t believe he just had a wet dream, can’t believe he just humped Thomas’ leg until he came like a fucking sixteen year old in his pants. 

“Get off me,” Thomas says, disgust lacing his voice. 

Alex swallows hard, rolls off Thomas and lies on his back, can’t even enjoy the loose relaxation in his limbs now. 

“Fucking hell,” he says, breathless. “I was dreaming…” it’s an excuse and he knows it, because he knows damn well what he was dreaming about. He can only hope that Thomas doesn’t know it too…

“Thomas, finger me,” Thomas mimics, nasty undertone to his voice, and Alex wants to die. 

Alex throws an arm over his face, and he’s growing uncomfortable, cum sticky and cold, pants wet. 

“What happened to ‘get a fucking room, Thomas’?” Thomas snarls, and Alex can’t, he just can’t. 

“Fuck off,” he snaps, and he gets up, grabs a change of clothes and all but throws himself out the back of the Escalade, and it’s his turn to slam the door behind him. 

Thomas has rigged up the tarp so there’s an awning out the back of the Escalade, a dry space to buffer the wet. Alex would stop to appreciate the genius of it if he wasn’t so fucking embarrassed.

It’s freezing cold, and Alex doesn’t really care for once, barely feels it he’s burning so hot with shame, and he can’t hide the fact that he wants Thomas from himself any longer. 

Wants him so bad.

Hell, the evidence is all over him. 

He’s pretty sure he’ll never forget the look on Thomas’ face, that dreadful mix of boredom and distaste, like Alex was something unpleasant he’d found on the bottom of his shoe, and Alex thinks he might just be losing his goddamn mind. 

He’s been alone for too long, that’s all.

He’s been in only Thomas’ company for too long, that’s all. 

It’s not his fault he’s not used to being touched anymore, it’s not his fault that he’s been closer to Thomas than anyone for years.

It’s not his fault that it feels like a breaking dam and now he’s drowning in a need for touch that goes bone deep. 

He stalks down to the river and strips out of his clothes, shivering in the cold. Wades in and his breath catches in his throat at the cold and he’s definitely not thinking about sex anymore. 

He washes the clothes, scrubs his body clean angrily, wishes he could will the entire morning away. 

It starts to rain as he washes, and he lets out a string of curses. No fire for the second day in a row means no hot food, no way to cook anything they do manage to catch. 

The prospect of a can of tuna for breakfast does nothing to improve Alex’s mood. 

He stays in the cold water for as long as he can stand, until he can’t feel his feet anymore at all, until he’s so cold he’s stopped shivering, until the replacement clothes he brought with him are also soaked through and he’s clean and pink skinned and blue lipped with cold.

Finally, he climbs out of the water, doesn’t even try to dry himself, cold rain washing over his skin. 

The last thing he wants to do is get back in the Escalade with Thomas, so he gathers up the wet clothes and carries them with him to check the traps. 

Comes up empty handed, figures the animals are smart enough to stay the fuck inside whatever shelter they can find in this weather. 

He manages to scrounge up a handful of edible greens and carries them back with him. 

At least… he thinks he’s going back.

But then, he walks and walks, and he should’ve hit the clearing with the Escalade in it by now, but he hasn’t, and there’s no sign of it, and Alex stops and stands splay legged and confused and finds he can’t quite get his head clear. 

Gives himself a mental shake, looks around, tries to orient himself.

Trees on trees on trees. 

Fuck.

Alex turns around and walks back the other way. 

The cold seeps into his bones, and he stumbles, starts to feel like he has led weights in his limbs, like his tongue is heavy in his mouth, like he wants to lie down and sleep. 

He pulls on the soaked pajama pants and shirt, and it doesn’t really help at all, but at least the cold rain isn’t right on his skin anymore. 

He stumbles through the forest, tries to think about just putting one foot in front of the other, of just getting back to the Escalade where it’s warmer, where it’s dry.

When he finally stumbles into the clearing, he’s near blind with exhaustion, mind numb from the cold. 

He sags with relief, trips over his own feet over to the makeshift awning. 

As he nears it, the back door of the Escalade pops open, and Thomas jumps out.

“Shit Alex you’re frozen, get in here!” Thomas reaches back in, grabs towels, and Alex stumbles under the awning.

The relief of being dry is immediate and overpowering, and Alex wants to lie down right here, but Thomas is grabbing his arms and Thomas is wrestling the sodden shirt off of him and hanging it up on the side of the awning and Alex mumbles protests that aren’t really words and when the cold air hits his skin he starts crying. 

“Fuck, Alex, you’re fucking frozen, what the fuck were you thinking, goddamn it!” Thomas wraps a towel tight around Alex’s shoulders and rubs at his arms, then tugs the soaked pants down Alex’s hips. “Come on, step out of these.”

Alex tries, but his body won’t cooperate anymore, and he falls against Thomas and he lets his eyes close, just wants to sleep.

“Hey come on. Left foot first, come on, fuck, Alexander what are you, useless?” Thomas snaps, worry making his voice tight. 

Alex leans heavily on Thomas, manages to lift his left foot, and then his right, so that Thomas can hang up the pants. 

He lets Thomas guide him onto the towel that serves as a mat, and lets Thomas rub him down with a third towel, head to toe.

“You’re cold as ice Alexander,” Thomas hisses as he dries Alex, and Alex can’t seem to stop crying, barely even realizes he has tears streaming down his cheeks, can’t feel them he’s so cold. Lets Thomas rub him with the towel and stands there freezing, starts shivering again as he’s dried off.

“What were you thinking?!” Thomas helps Alex climb back onto the air mattress and climbs in behind him, shuts the door and shuts the rain and the cold out. 

“I wa… traps…” Alex mumbles. Slumps into a heap and shivers and shakes, can’t get his mind online enough to get under the blankets. 

Thankfully, Thomas is there.

“Fuck, you honestly thought we’d catch anything in this weather? Alex, honestly you’re so fucking stubborn sometimes.” Thomas bundles the blankets around Alex, and strips his own shirt off, slides in beside him. 

“Fucking _hell_ you’re cold!” he hisses. 

Alex lets out a strangled sound of relief at the touch of Thomas’ warm chest to his frozen one, and presses in close, shaking. 

Thomas wraps an arm around him and holds him tight, tucks the blankets in securely. 

“Shit Alex, you owe me for this one you fucking moron. You’re so _cold_ if you get hypothermia and die on me I will resurrect you and kill you a second time. I did not save your life just for you to go and die because you were embarrassed about a stupid sex dream!” Thomas holds Alex tight, and Alex presses his face into the warmth of Thomas’ neck and only then does he realize that his face is still wet because he’s still fucking crying of all things, but he realizes it in an abstract sort of way, and he can’t really connect his brain enough to make it stop.

Thomas pulls back just enough to look down at Alex, really look at his face for the first time. 

Notices the tears, and swears under his breath.

Alex feels drunk, feels like he’s not really real anymore. 

Thomas brings his hand up, swipes his thumb over Alex’s cheek and wipes away the tears. Swears softly again, the harsh word making something in Alex’s chest catch. 

“Hey, it’s okay,” Thomas says softly. 

Alex just shivers, just watches Thomas’ face. Feels sleepy and heavy and not real.

Thomas looks at him, something in his eyes Alex hasn’t ever seen there before, and Alex feels like he should be doing something, should be thinking something, but he can’t quite get there, feels like he’s reaching through fog, so he just nestles his face back into Thomas’ neck.

Feels Thomas sigh against him, and feels the soft press of Thomas’ chin on the top of his head.


	16. Chapter 16

Alex struggles up out of sleep feeling like he’s been buried under a thick layer of cotton. 

He opens his eyes to the blue tinted world of the inside of the Escalade. Feels heavy, feels a little boneless. 

The last thing he remembers is feeling like he was going to drown in rain and mud.

The last thing he remembers is being cold, so, so cold.

Thomas is sound asleep, arms wrapped tight around Alex, and he’s shirtless, and Alex is naked, and Alex doesn’t really remember how they got back to here. 

Thomas looks… he looks exhausted. 

Alex studies his face, everything softened by sleep. He looks younger, smaller. Vulnerable.

It makes something catch in Alex’s chest, and maybe because he just feels so damn fuzzy headed still, like something in his chest has been shaken loose and is rattling around in there, and maybe because with no one else around how could you not grow to find a soft spot inside yourself for the only other person left in your life, hell, maybe the whole damn world, but whatever the reason, Alex reaches out and brushes the backs of his stiff, sore fingers over Thomas’ cheek. 

Thomas sighs, and frowns for a moment, but doesn’t wake, and that’s just as well because Alex doesn’t really want him to, just wants to sit with this a moment and try to breathe around it because it’s frightening. 

Soft places are places of weakness, and Alex always fought to crush them ruthlessly, but the sharp toothed, hollow boned thing in his chest is quiet right now, and in that quiet, Alex can breathe a little easier. 

They’re doing alright, he and Thomas.

He realizes that now, as he lies in the warm tangle of blankets in the safety of the Escalade, and knows he wouldn’t have survived this far without Thomas, and maybe the soft spot growing in his chest for Thomas isn’t a liability after all, but a place to defend at all costs. 

Thomas shifts in his sleep, and tugs Alex a little closer, his broad hand spanning the small of Alex’s back. Murmurs something in his sleep. 

Without Thomas, Alex wouldn’t have an air mattress and a ridiculous amount of soft, warm, comfortable bedding to sleep in. He wouldn’t have the shelter of the Escalade, wouldn’t have the stockpile of food in the back seat. He wouldn’t have an awning and a mat outside to keep most of the mud and dirt out and the Escalade clean. He wouldn’t have functioning traps, or the occasional fish to eat, because what the fuck does Alex know about hunting or fishing? 

He wouldn’t have anyone to argue with, and as much as Thomas drives him crazy half the time, Alex knows that he is fuelled best by spite and anger, and so arguing with Thomas keeps the blood in his veins hot, it keeps him going, it gives him something to grit his teeth against. 

Without Thomas, Alex wouldn’t have transportation, wouldn’t have clothes, wouldn’t have socks on his goddamn feet which he realizes, belatedly, that he’s wearing, which means that Thomas must have put them on him, because there was no way Alex was thinking clearly enough to do that. 

Without Thomas, Alex would have died yesterday.

Alex sighs, and has to admit that Thomas is a genius, with his makeshift traps and his tarp awning and his fishing lines and his air mattress bed. 

Life wouldn’t be nearly as comfortable without him here, and Alex realizes with a start, as if it was something he’d hidden from himself, loathe to admit until now, but he respects Thomas, because Thomas is as smart as he is, in his own way. 

Maybe even smarter.

More importantly, Thomas is just as stubborn, and with the world trying too clearly to make things hard for them, they both have their heels dug in and their teeth gritted, and Alex realizes he’s inadvertently picked the perfect person to drag along to freedom.

Thomas huffs in his sleep, slides his hand a little lower and cups Alex’s ass.

Alex’s breath catches, and he doesn’t move because he doesn’t know if he wants Thomas to want this, or if he wants Thomas not to. 

After a moment, he can’t take it anymore, can’t sit in this limbo with all of these conflicting feelings, feeling as though he’s balanced on the edge of something that there’s no going back from. 

So he makes a choice.

“Thomas, wake up,” he hisses. “Your hand’s on my ass.”

Thomas twitches, as if startled by Alex’s voice, and he groans softly and squeezes that hand and Alex thinks hell yeah, he chose right. 

Thomas goes carefully still, and opens his eyes. Looks at Alex with a carefully blank expression on his face.

“Your hand’s on my ass,” Alex repeats. 

Thomas shifts his hand back up to Alex’s lower back, something almost pointed in the gentle motion. 

“You know…” Alex starts. Shimmies a little closer to Thomas, walks his fingers up Thomas’ chest, ignores the way Thomas is holding himself so carefully still and contained, just staring at Alex with those deep, dark eyes. Alex can’t read his expression, can’t pick out a single thing Thomas is thinking or feeling, but it’s too late now, he’s made his choice. “...we’re all alone out here…” he says, lets a little heat, a little suggestion creep into his voice. 

Thomas raises one perfectly arched eyebrow. 

“Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?” he asks, and he’s still so motionless, so carefully controlled, voice giving away nothing at all. 

“Hell yeah,” Alex breathes, and his cock twitches, because fuck, why weren’t they doing this all along, what was ever the point of holding back? 

Alex tips his chin up a little, and they’re so close, and he’s not sure how Thomas still smells so good when they’re out in the fucking wilderness, but he does, and now that Alex has given in, he just _wants_ him, wants him so bad. 

Their lips are almost touching now, and Thomas is still so goddamn still, like a statue, and Alex tries to read something, anything in that impassive face, and gets nothing, nothing at all. 

Alex leans in, lets his eyes flutter closed, breath catching, giving in, giving up to this desire that was there all along, stretches up to let his mouth meet Thomas’-

Quick as a cat, Thomas slides his hand between their faces, and Alex ends up giving his palm an open mouthed kiss. 

Alex’s eyes fly open again and he frowns in confusion. Pulls back and stares at Thomas. 

“Thomas?” He asks.

“No,” Thomas replies, voice flat. 

“What?” Alex blinks.

“No,” Thomas repeats, same flat tone of voice. 

Alex feels a little sick to his stomach, feels even more embarrassed than he did yesterday, fire prickling through his veins. 

“What do you mean?” He asks again, can’t believe Thomas is saying no to him, can’t believe he’s being _rejected_ when he’s not only just one of a shitty number of options, but is literally the _only_ option. 

“I wasn’t aware that I said something difficult to understand,” Thomas says in his low, arrogant drawl. 

“I… but… what?” Alex asks again. 

“No, Alexander. No. I don’t want to finger you, as you so charmingly begged for yesterday. I don’t want to fuck you, or kiss you, or whatever the fuck you are asking for right now you arrogant dick,” Thomas sneers. 

Alex feels cold all over, and he shrinks back, away from Thomas, and he wants to get up and walk out again but he can’t find the energy to move that far, still exhausted from yesterday, but he doesn’t want to sit here like this, watching Thomas take sadistic pleasure in shutting him down. 

“Oh,” he says, dumbly, doesn’t know what else to say in the face of that rejection. 

“I only cuddle you to keep warm. Did you think there was more to it than that? Poor baby. Wake the fuck up and look at yourself, of course I don’t want you.” Thomas huffs a mean little laugh, and turns over. “And don’t you dare get out of this fucking car, Mr. Almost Gets Hypothermia Because He’s Sulking. I’m not saving your ass again.”

Burning with shame, Alex turns over too, inches away from Thomas so they aren’t touching anymore, and stares at the wall. 

Knows Thomas has a point, of course he does. Alex let the last good, soft parts of him follow Eliza out the door, and never bothered to try to get them back. What the fuck would the point have been?

Knows he was right all along, that soft places were just weak spots, just waiting to be bruised. 

Swallows bitter anger at himself for daring to think he’d be wanted.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> chapter warnings: some violence, blood/injuries

After that, Alex doesn’t know what to do with his heart. 

So he lets it freeze over again, takes deep breaths and hates the cold but doesn’t know how else to protect himself. 

So he tries to hold his aching, bruised heart in his hands and carry it that way, but his hands shake and his hands aren’t used to handling anything with care and his hands aren’t prepared for this. 

Thought he’d learned his lesson when he’d let Eliza walk out on him and leave him in a damp apartment with nothing but a battered heart of his own making. 

Hadn’t known what to do with his hands then, either. 

So he swallows hard and tries not to breathe too deeply when he re-braids Thomas’ hair. Tries not to look at his broad shoulders. Tries not to think about how the soft skin of his neck would taste, and tries not to shake with regret for all the moments he won’t get to have. 

Tries not to think about how he’d always known he’d die alone and unloved, and isn’t sure what difference it makes that Thomas is here next to him, that he dragged Thomas out here just to live a little longer, running on a wing and a prayer and a sliver of hope that they might find a way through. 

What felt like a favour at the time now just feels like a dick move.

So Alex tries to sleep with his back to Thomas’ back in the dark. Tries not to melt into him, tries not to think about all the ways they’re touching. Tries not to think about how he feels so close and so far all at once. 

Tries not to tense up when inevitably, Thomas turns over in his sleep and drapes his arm over Alex, tugs him close, buries his nose in the back of Alex’s neck. 

Tries not to let it feel good, tries not to want and want and want.

Inevitably wakes up with his face tucked into that soft spot under Thomas’ chin. 

So Alex tries not to watch Thomas when he knows Thomas isn’t looking. Tries not to admire the broad span of his back, the chiselled cut of his jaw, the way he still looks so damn good, so fucking polished, even out here in the middle of nowhere with only Alex for company. 

So Alex tries not to want him. 

So Alex tries not to hope that things might change some day. 

So Alex tries to deny what he already knows in his heart and his bones is undeniable.

They go back to circling each other warily. 

Thomas won’t look right at Alex anymore, and tension creeps into his shoulders and stays there. 

~

Alex doesn’t realize that the quiet of the forest has dulled his senses until it’s nearly too late. 

He gets out of the Escalade in the early morning, cringes a bit at the first touch of frost on his bare feet, and pads off into the woods to check the traps. 

No more lingering in bed with Thomas, snuggled up together and pretending there’s anything more to it than just the best source of body heat. 

No more daydreams about the soft spaces that could be nurtured between them. 

Nothing but Alex and the sharp toothed, hollow boned thing in his chest gnawing on a rib bone and laughing at him, _told you so, told you so, told you so_.

Alex shakes his head at his own foolishness, and heads down to the river to check the net Thomas rigged up with the long grasses from the edge of the clearing. How he can look at ordinary things and turn them into something usable, Alex doesn’t know, but it certainly makes their lives more comfortable. 

Alex can’t deny, having Thomas around improves his quality of life, and he has to grudgingly admit that he would have starved to death or died of exposure by now without him. 

Humming off key, Alex rolls up his pajama pants and wades into the river to the bend where the net was fixed. Lets out a little whoop of triumph when he sees a large fish flailing in it, and scoops the whole contraption out of the water. 

He carries the fish to land using the net as a sack, and he’s about to set it down and kill the fish to carry it back when he hears Thomas’ voice, shouting his name, clear as day. 

All the hair on the back of his neck stands straight up, and Alex bolts back towards the Escalade, fish flailing in his hand. 

Without thinking, he digs the gun out of his pocket with his free hand, curls his finger around the useless trigger. 

He bursts into the clearing and stops dead. 

Thomas is outside, and he has a branch in his hand and the tarp is down and nowhere to be seen -in the car, Alex hopes, doesn’t want to lose the tarp, but barely spares a thought for it now because directly across the clearing from him, two men were standing in the clearing.

Thomas is frozen, right in between them.

Alex eyes the strangers, hefts the struggling fish in his hand so he has a better grip on it, and steps a little to the side, gun hidden behind his leg. 

“Give me the keys, pretty boy…” One of the men steps towards Thomas, and the sun glints off of metal by his hip and fuck, he has a gun, and Alex suddenly can’t breathe, wishes he could somehow get between Thomas and the strangers, but he’s too far and they have a gun and they’re walking towards Thomas and Thomas is frozen, just staring at him. 

“Thomas back up,” Alex hisses, hopes Thomas will hear him and step back towards him, move to the side, something. 

Alex steps a little closer, footsteps careful. 

“C’mon peacock, give Daddy the keys…” the man croons. 

Alex sees red. 

“Get in the car and drive, Thomas,” Alex hisses as he inches closer, hates that he has no cover, hates that this whole thing is a crapshoot, that lives could depend on who shoots faster, and Alex is holding an unloaded gun.

His hands shake with anger, and everything feels sharp and clear and Alex’s breath is light in his lungs and the sharp toothed, hollow boned thing in his chest bares its teeth in a grin and laughs a little laugh. 

After that, everything happens too fast. 

Thomas hurtles his branch at the strangers and bolts for the car, but he’s on the wrong side.

The stranger with the gun lifts it and fires, and Alex just can’t get there in time. 

He tries.

He doesn’t know what he’s planning to do, but he tries, flings himself at Thomas, trying to get between, gun up like he’s going to fire back, but he can’t. 

The stranger fires again, and Alex ducks low, drops the fish, and flings himself at the man with the gun.

Hears the third gunshot and tries valiantly to twist out of the way. Doesn’t feel anything, and hears a shattering of glass. 

Swings the barrel of the gun at the side of the stranger’s head with both hands and all his might, hears more than feels the way it connects with the side of his face, dull thud of impact, sick sound of metal on flesh. 

Adrenaline courses through him, and all he knows is the crunch of fist on bone, the feeling that he’s actually alive, actually right here. The tang of blood on his tongue and the crack of his neck when the stranger lands a punch back, and then he hears the roar of the Escalade coming to life like a blessing and he hopes to hell Thomas is the one behind the wheel. 

“Get in the car Alex!” Thomas shouts.

Alex is all fists and knees and elbows and gun, two against one and they’re bigger than him but he’s faster and he’s been eating better than he has in years and his body feels _good_ and it feels strong. 

He gets another good swing in with the gun, and gets his elbow back into what feels like a face, and he breaks free and scrambles for the car. 

Gets in and gets the door shut and locked behind him with the strangers on his heels, and Thomas steps on the gas and they spray mud in the air as they peel out of the clearing like a bat out of hell. 

“I dropped the fish!” Alex howls, dismayed.

“Fuck the fish!” Thomas is staring straight ahead, and they careen out onto the road and take off, pedal to the floor, and Alex can’t help it, he starts laughing. 

Thomas glances sidelong at him, and Alex laughs harder, and he can feel pain now as the adrenaline starts to subside, and it makes him laugh harder. 

“You’re fucking insane,” Thomas says, but it’s the friendliest thing he’s said to Alex in days, and Alex grins a feral grin and he whoops with delight.

“Yep,” Alex chirps, and he shifts and tucks his legs up under him to sit cross legged, and for once Thomas doesn’t complain about it. 

Alex takes a deep breath, tries to get his body back under control, calm his laughing, his racing heart. 

Abruptly remembers the stranger’s lewd smirk, the way he looked Thomas up and down and wrote him off immediately… 

_”give the keys to Daddy…”_

Sees red all over again and turns to Thomas.

“Are you okay? Fuck that guy, I swear, turn the car around I want to fucking kill him, where does he get off referring to himself as your ‘daddy’, he could’ve fucking killed you, godammit Thomas _turn the car around_ \- you’re bleeding!” Alex forgets his anger, forgets everything except the sight of blood down Thomas’ arm. 

“Fuck, yeah, it hurts,” Thomas huffs. 

“Pull over let me look!” Alex leans in, gets his hands on Thomas’ arm, tries to see. 

Thomas shrugs him off angrily. 

“Stop it, I’m trying to drive. If you get blood on my interior I’ll run you over next time you get out of the car. We need to get far enough away, Alex!” Thomas snaps. 

Alex huffs, and twists around to paw through their hoarde of stuff in the back seat. Can’t find anything within reach that might be useful, and sits on his hands because he can’t stand not being able to fix it. 

“My hand fucking kills,” Thomas complains, and Alex looks at Thomas’ hands, looks at the way his knuckles are swelling, and wants to wrench the wheel out of those hands that should have always remained undamaged, and turn the car back around to find their attackers, and he wants to drive right over them with the Escalade, and then put it in reverse, and drive over them all over again. 

“Your knuckles are probably broken. Did you punch someone?” Alex asks, incredulous, didn’t think Thomas had it in him, despite all his talk. 

“Yeah. It… hurts more than I thought it would,” Thomas admits with a rueful smile, and Alex starts laughing all over again, and he looks up and catches Thomas’ eye and Thomas is laughing too, and Alex’s chest feels all warm and fuzzy and they drive off into the sunset and Alex is pretty sure that none of this is how any of it is supposed to work, but the strange taste on the back of his tongue is hope, and so he lets it linger.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> chapter warnings: blood and injuries and stuff

They keep driving. 

Alex bugs Thomas to stop. 

Thomas refuses, removes one hand from the wheel and cradles it in his lap.

Alex bugs Thomas to stop. 

Thomas refuses, face going pale and jaw tightening.

Alex bugs Thomas to stop. 

Thomas refuses, body starting to tremble. 

“Thomas. We’ve been driving for hours, we need to stop!” Alex snaps. 

Would reach out and grab the wheel but he knows nothing about driving, doesn’t want to run them off the road. 

“No,” Thomas says again. 

“Thomas! You’re shaking, and I need to set your fucking hand before I have to break it again!” Alex wants to hit something, frustrated. “I can’t patch you up in the dark!” 

“I don’t want to get murdered!” Thomas snaps back. 

“We’re not- fuck, we’re not getting murdered but you’re still losing blood and it’s getting dark we have to stop!” Alex snarls. 

“Fine!” Thomas yanks the Escalade off the road with no warning, and Alex chokes on a curse as they bounce, and the side mirror on Alex’s side snaps off as they careen into a tree, and Thomas slams on the breaks in what doesn’t even really amount to a clearing. 

Alex stares at him, mouth falling open.

“Happy?” Thomas snarls.

“Uh…” Alex chooses not to answer Thomas’ question. “Get in the back… I want to look at your arm…” he opens the door, slides out of the front seat and pads around to the back - hopes Thomas doesn’t notice that the left tail light has been shot out - and climbs in. They can rig up the tarp in the morning. They can look at the side mirror in the morning. All of it can wait.

A moment later, Thomas climbs in and shuts the door. 

It’s already far too dark, and Alex huffs, annoyed, as he duct tapes flashlights to the ceiling and turns them on, lighting the trunk space up as best he can. 

He pushes the bedding to the side, spreads the tarp out underneath them, and leans into the back seat to fish for first aid supplies. 

Sits back up, and really looks at Thomas for the first time. 

“Shirt off,” he says, eyeing the way his shoulder is still freely bleeding. 

Thomas complies, wincing, and sets the bloody shirt down beside himself. 

Alex scoots closer, uses the rags of what had once been his tank top to clean Thomas’ arm and dab at the wound with water until it’s clean enough to look. 

“You got fucking shot,” Alex hisses. Feels his blood run hot again. “It’s not deep, thank god. I think we can like… glue it… or some shit…” 

“You are not gluing me back together,” Thomas hisses through gritted teeth. 

“But…”

“No,” Thomas says. 

“Fine.” Instead, Alex packs the wound with vaseline, and bandages it carefully. 

Takes Thomas’ hand next, and carefully straightens out his fingers, ignoring Thomas’ muttered curses of pain. 

“Shh. It’ll be worse if we don’t,” Alex says. Quickly, with practiced precision from having done it to himself countless times, Alex resets Thomas’ knuckles. 

Ignores the way Thomas’ breath heaves in his chest. 

Bandages his hand tightly. 

“There. Good as new.” Alex looks up, and his breath catches in his throat. Thomas is so close, and Alex suddenly doesn’t know what to do with himself, realizes he’s still holding Thomas’ bandaged hand loosely in his own, but doesn’t move to let him go. 

Thomas… Thomas’ cheeks are a little hollower than when Alex first saw him, and his hair is pulled back in a simple poof at the back of his head and it makes him look more real somehow, softer somehow. His facial hair is still perfectly trimmed, skin flawless, but there’s something tired deep in his dark brown eyes that wasn’t there before.

Thomas… Thomas is looking right at him for the first time in days, and just like that the wall of ice Alex tried so hard to build between them thaws and melts. 

Thomas brings his good hand up to Alex’s face, cups his chin with the lightest of touches.

“You’re going to have a black eye…” he murmurs, soft. 

Alex shrugs a little, knows he’s going to be all over bruises and aches tomorrow, but he’s not bleeding, he didn’t get shot. 

“If they’d gotten you…” Alex doesn’t finish the sentence, doesn’t want to admit to all the things on the tip of his tongue, doesn’t want to know what he’d say if he let his mouth keep going on its own accord. 

He looks at Thomas, leans into his hand, lets his eyes close and takes a steadying breath. 

After everything, Thomas is still here. 

Even after he left, he came back. 

Even after all the arguing, all the ways they’d inadvertedly - or completely intentionally - trampled over each other’s boundaries, Thomas is still here. 

Cupping Alex’s chin in his hand while Alex’s hands hold his injured one lightly.

Looking at Alex like maybe there are still soft places left inside him, and like maybe, just maybe, one of those places could be for him. 

Alex feels like he can’t breathe, feels like he doesn’t want to move, blink, speak, so much as think for fear of shattering the moment. 

“They didn’t,” Thomas says back, softly. “I don’t know what would’ve happened if you weren’t there…” Thomas admits, and he curls the fingers of his bandaged hand slowly and carefully around Alex’s hand, and everything feels so soft and fragile that Alex still wants to hold his breath and just sit in this moment forever. 

“I don’t want to think about it,” Alex says, because he doesn’t know either, and he really doesn’t want to think about it… looking at Thomas’ bandaged arm is bad enough, and Alex is struck with the realization that this is his person now. His only person. There’s no one left in the world for him anymore except Thomas, and so no matter that they fight all the time, no matter that Thomas doesn’t want him, not like that - no matter the way he’s looking at Alex right now - he’s Alex’s to protect and care for, because who else do either of them have now but each other?

Alex swallows hard, and he watches Thomas’ face and can’t move for fear of doing the wrong thing, saying the wrong thing, and his heart skips a beat and it yearns for Thomas so hard that it aches. 

“You saved my life,” Thomas says, a little awed, nothing but softness in the admission. “Weren’t you scared?” He asks. 

“Nah,” Alex replies, but it’s not bravado it’s just the truth. “I didn’t have time to be scared, I just couldn’t let them shoot you…”

Thomas just looks at him. Strokes his thumb over Alex’s cheek and sighs softly. 

“I don’t think you’re ever scared…” Thomas says. 

Alex laughs a little, closes his eyes against Thomas’ thumb stroking his cheek. The soft touch feels like a bruise. Alex feels cracked open. A little raw, a little over sensitive. 

“Not true,” he whispers. He’s scared often enough. 

He keeps his eyes closed, can feel the dim light of the flashlights on the backs of his eyelids, tarp crinkly beneath them, the rough pad of Thomas’ thumb against his cheek, stroking gently back and forth. 

“I’m scared all the time,” Thomas admits on the softest of whispers. 

Alex swallows hard, feels like Thomas’ admission shakes something even looser inside him. Feels fragile, feels balanced on the edge of something important and doesn’t know what to do, frozen by indecision for the first time in his entire life, and Thomas is there, so very close, hand on Alex’s face, hand in Alex’s hands…

Thomas swears softly, so soft Alex could almost fool himself into thinking he’s imagined it, and then the soft crinkle of the tarp, soft shift of the air mattress beneath him, and Thomas’s breath over his face…

Alex’s breath hitches, and he doesn’t move, doesn’t lean in or pull away, Thomas’ words echoing in his head;

_”Look at you, of course I don’t want you…”_

But then Thomas’ lips brush his, so very soft and careful, open mouthed and honest, and all Alex can think about is how badly he wants this, whole body honing in on Thomas like a moth to a flame, pride be damned. 

“Alex…” Thomas breathes, so soft, almost not even speaking, and then he kisses him again, and this time Alex kisses him back. 

Thomas huffs a soft breath through his nose, and slides his hand into Alex’s hair, leans in a little closer, tarp rustling beneath them. 

Alex parts his lips for Thomas’ tongue, and melts into him. 

Thomas makes a soft sound in the back of his throat, and licks into Alex’s mouth, and Alex sighs into the kiss, heart beating in double time, because it’s so much more than he ever thought it would be, liquid heat travelling from Thomas’ mouth all through his body. 

Alex could get lost here forever. 

Does, for a little while, until his knees ache from sitting like this, until he’s a little dizzy and undone, breathless and needy and wanting, Thomas’ mouth moving over his in a way that reaches right down into all those shaken loose pieces of him, and pries them wide open.

Slowly, Thomas pulls back. 

“Let’s get rid of this tarp…” he says, and Alex nods, all open mouthed and breathless. Gathers up the tarp and folds it carefully over the soiled clothes and rags, and stuffs it into the back seat where it can wait until morning. 

Alex wriggles out of his clothes and tosses them over too, reaches up and clicks the flashlights off while Thomas double checks that the doors are locked, and undresses too. 

Alex crawls under the covers, burrows into blankets that smell like him and Thomas, and shivers a little with cold and with want until Thomas slides in beside him and pulls him close again. 

“Now, where were we?” Thomas’ voice in the dark, reaching out. Thomas’ body, lean and warm and firm against him. Thomas’ mouth finding his again, sealing over his lips and kissing him like he wants to do it forever. 

Alex melts against him, slides his hand up Thomas’ back and his leg between Thomas’ legs. 

Thomas moans softly, lets his bandaged hand rest on Alex’s shoulder, good hand cradling Alex’s face, and licks deep into his mouth. 

Alex tangles his tongue with Thomas’, and he groans a little as his cock starts to fill out, pressed against Thomas’ stomach, and he feels a little bit drunk on it all. 

Thomas’ body against his, like countless times before in sleep, feels brand new all over again. 

Thomas shifts, deftly rolls Alex onto his back and settles above him. Reaches his good hand down and finds Alex’s half hard cock. Strokes it loosely, and pulls back to look at Alex in the dark. 

“What’s this?” He purrs, and Alex’s cock twitches in Thomas’ fingers and he chokes on a moan and shakes his head a little. 

“Thought… thought you didn’t want me…” he whispers, all sting and bruise and achey, too big want. 

Thomas makes a sad sound in the back of his throat.

“No, Alex. Never didn’t want you,” he says, voice soft in the night air. 

Alex’s breath catches. 

“You said…” he says, and then moans, because Thomas’ thumb finds the head of his cock and rubs back and forth and somehow knows just the way Alex likes it. 

“I lied,” Thomas says, and curls his fingers around Alex’s cock, strokes him to full hardness. 

“Oh,” Alex says in a soft huff, and he can’t really get his mind wrapped around anything much right now except how Thomas is stroking him, loose and languid, like he wants to do it forever. 

Thomas shifts, and sits up, and cool air kisses Alex’s skin, but Thomas’ hand doesn’t stop stroking him, and Alex arches his hips up into those touches. 

One of the flashlights clicks on, and Alex is bathed in dim glow, and his breath catches in his throat at the way Thomas looks down at him, heavy lidded, like he wants to swallow Alex whole, and oh… 

Alex knows he’d let him. 

Alex knows how he wants to die, now. Surrendered to Thomas’ hands and Thomas’ lips and Thomas’ mouth to be pulled apart piece by exquisite piece until there’s nothing left of him but want and need and ache. 

Thomas drops back down over Alex, and their eyes catch and hold and Alex can’t breathe again, warmth in his chest, Thomas’ hand still working his cock slow and sweet and agonizing.

“Look at you,” Thomas breathes. “How could I not want you?” He says, so close to what he’d said before, but so very far, and suddenly ‘not’ is Alex’s favourite word. 

Thomas’ thumb finds the head of Alex’s cock again, strokes back and forth, slick precome rubbing over him. 

Alex moans, open mouthed, desperate, heat coiling in his belly. 

“I know what I said, and I know why I said it, but Alex it was never true…” Thomas whispers. Lets his gaze wander all over Alex’s body, drinking in the sight of him.

Alex can’t speak, feels a million words heavy on his tongue but can’t remember how to put them in the air. Doesn’t know what he’d say, anyways, in the face of that confession except for, desperately-

_I want you too, I want you too, I want you too._

Knows his body is saying that for him anyways. 

“Is this alright?” Thomas asks, so soft, so gentle. Slicks his hand back down Alex’s cock, fingers tighter. 

Alex nods, and he reaches up to touch but Thomas shakes his head.

“No, don’t. Tell me this is alright, Alex,” Thomas breathes. 

Alex stops with his hands halfway to everywhere, fingers closing on nothing. 

“Yeah, yeah, please,” he whispers. 

“Good,” Thomas says. “Hands down. I just want to touch you, just want to look at you, Alex you’re so beautiful…” Thomas’ hand still stroking him, touches surer now. 

Alex swallows a little whine and stretches his hands above his head. Links his fingers together because he needs something to hold onto even if it’s just his own hands. 

“Wish I had two working hands…” Thomas murmurs. Looks down at the way Alex’s cock looks with his fingers wrapped around it. “I’d finger you open with my free hand, just like you were begging for, fuck, Alex, bet you’re so tight and hot inside…” 

Alex groans loud at the very idea of it, hips jerking against Thomas’ hand. 

“Want to watch you like this forever, coming undone in my hand… Alex, Alex, why weren’t we doing this sooner?” Thomas murmurs, a little wistful, little lost in thought, and Alex could tell him why, could bring it all back up again but he doesn’t want to, wants to forget any of that ever happened because all that matters is they’re here now and Thomas is handling him like he’s made of glass and it feels so impossibly good. 

Thomas sits back between Alex’s legs, looks down at him as he strokes him faster, fingers tightening. 

“That’s it, look at you, god you’re so stunning, I could watch you like this forever but I want to watch you come, too, spill all over my hand and your stomach so I can lick it off you…” Thomas gives his hand a little twist, and his words go straight to Alex’s cock. 

Alex comes with Thomas’ name yanked from his throat. 

His hips jerk up and he twists his fingers in his hand and his vision goes white as he pumps thick ropes of come over Thomas’ hand, wet warmth landing on his stomach in spurts, and he feels like he’s flying into a million little pieces, all broken open, all undone, all need and ache and Thomas, Thomas, Thomas like a beacon, Thomas’ voice spilling soft curse words that sound more like an homage. 

Alex feels like he’s been flung into the sun, everything bright white and hot and too much, and everything fades out and he’s lost and adrift for a moment, drunk on pleasure, heart hammering in his chest. 

When he comes back down, his cheeks are wet and he’s panting and Thomas is above him balanced on his forearms, pressing soft kisses to his forehead.

“Thomas…” Alex whispers, and it’s the most broken, vulnerable thing he’s ever said in his life. 

He feels shattered.

He feels torn apart.

He feels raw and wide open and brand new.

Thomas pulls back to look at him, and kisses the tears from his cheeks. 

“I’m sorry, Alex,” Thomas whispers.

“It’s okay…” Alex says, words heavy and clumsy on his tongue. Swallows hard and takes a shaky breath, eyes a little wide, little shell shocked. “God,” he laughs a little, hollow. “I don’t even… fuck, why am I crying.” 

Alex unhooks his fingers from themselves, flexes and lets them bend back to normal, wincing at the ache in them from being stretched back the wrong way. 

Thomas shifts down, kisses and licks and sucks the shivery, sensitive expanse of Alex’s chest and stomach, and Alex watches him, pushes up on an elbow so he can see Thomas as he licks and sucks the cum from Alex’s skin, tongue teasing and light and careful, thorough mouth cleaning up every last drop. 

Alex twitches when Thomas’ mouth finds his cock, tongue lapping away the evidence, Alex’s oversensitive skin burning and prickling like he’s been set on fire. 

Just when it verges on too much, fresh wave of tears down Alex’s cheeks and a choked sob stuck in his chest, Thomas shifts swiftly back up, and gathers Alex close. 

“There, come on sugar, are you alright?” Thomas kisses Alex’s forehead and tucks the blankets tight around him. 

Alex takes another steadying breath, still feels loose and shaken up and cracked open. 

“Yeah,” he whispers. 

“Good,” Thomas lets his forehead rest against Alex’s, strokes his bandaged hand over Alex’s head and holds him, close and soft and protective, and Alex melts into the first safe, soft space he’s known in years. 

“Sleep, baby. It’s all okay now,” Thomas whispers into Alex’s ear. 

Alex burrows close. Doesn’t want to let this go, doesn’t want to sleep, doesn’t want to ever be peeled from Thomas’ skin…

Makes a soft sound of protest as sleep rises up to claim him anyways, but there’s no fighting it, and for once, Alex doesn’t have it in him to try.


	19. Chapter 19

Alex wakes slowly, gathered tight in Thomas’ arms like so many times before, but it’s different now and he can feel it in the way his bones are liquid against Thomas’ warm skin even before the memory of last night trickles back in. 

He still feels a little shaken loose, a little torn apart, and his heart skips a beat and his mouth goes dry and he wants to stay here forever, all melted, all soft, but he also wants to run far, far away, and never look at Thomas again. 

It would be easy to choose neither, to mouth up Thomas’ neck and reach between them to stroke his cock, to drown all the things running around in his head with sex instead. 

So he noses Thomas’ neck, strokes his hand down his back, and Thomas shifts against him, sighs softly into waking, and pulls back to peer down at Alex. 

“Good morning,” he says, all softness and light and sweet. 

Alex feels, abruptly, like there’s nothing he wouldn’t do to keep Thomas’ expression looking just like it does right now, and the feeling is so sudden and big and all encompassing that Alex doesn’t know what to do with it, can’t swallow it, and nearly chokes. 

“How’s your hand?” Alex asks, because he doesn’t want to talk about how’s his heart, how’s all the pieces of himself that suddenly feel so fragile.

“Sore,” Thomas says. Lifts it into the air and flexes his fingers slowly, stiffly. 

“How’s your arm?” Alex asks, because he doesn’t want to talk about how’s all the pieces of him that were shaken loose and flung into the sun, how’s every burned and cracked edge of him. 

“Sore,” Thomas says again. Makes a face. 

“We’ll need to take a look at it, later…” Alex says. The last thing they need is Thomas’ arm getting infected, out here with no medical supplies and only Alex for a doctor. 

“Later,” Thomas says, and grins a slow grin, dark and honey sweet. 

Alex’s stomach does a backflip, and he licks his lips. 

“I can think of something I can take care of now…” he murmurs, and yeah, it’s cheesy, and Thomas huffs a little laugh and shakes his head, but he turns onto his back and looks up at Alex with lowered lashes. 

“Yeah? What would that be, doll?” Thomas drawls, honey dripping from every word. 

“I think your cock needs sucking, don’t you?” Alex pushes himself up onto his hands and knees, and oh yeah, he feels like one big bruise, everything tight and sore and aching and raw, but then there’s Thomas all soft and stretched out and vulnerable beneath him, and Alex knows even if all his bones were broken, it wouldn’t stop him from getting his mouth on Thomas’ cock right now.

“Mmm, think you’re right,” Thomas moves his hand beneath the blankets, and Alex can see that he’s touching himself, hand stroking up and down the length of his cock, almost lazy, and there’s something almost voyeuristic about watching it through the blankets, something so intimate, like he shouldn’t be seeing this, shouldn’t know what Thomas looks like when he’s alone and touching himself. 

Alex’s mouth practically waters, desperate to see exactly what Thomas is doing to himself under those blankets, the way the head of his cock looks gripped tight in his long fingers, the silk slide of skin on skin… 

Alex lifts the blankets out of the way, moves between Thomas’ legs, and lets the blankets fall down his back to pool around his hips. 

Looks, and his breath catches in his throat, and he could stay like this forever, just watching Thomas’ hand move lazily over his cock, palm rubbing over the head, fingers stroking down the length. 

“...not a lot of sucking happening, Alex,” Thomas says, little hitch in his voice. 

Alex settles onto his elbows between Thomas’ legs, looks up Thomas’ body to his face, and his heart skips a beat at the way Thomas is watching him, all soft, all heavy, all wide open. 

Thomas pulls a pillow behind his head so he can watch, and Alex replaces Thomas’ hand with his own smaller one. Takes a moment just to enjoy the heavy, hot weight of it in his hand before trailing slow, open mouthed kisses up the side, eyes on Thomas’ face. 

“Mm, you look awful pretty like that, doll,” Thomas drawls, and hell, when he says it like that, when it comes out of his mouth all honest and soft and dripping sugar, Alex doesn’t mind it at all. 

Alex’s eyes flutter closed as he swipes his tongue over the head of Thomas’ cock, tastes precome and Thomas’ salty skin, and sucks the head of his cock into his mouth with a low moan. 

Alex, who does everything in a rush, mad race to the finish line, who’s hands shake when he isn’t trying to do twenty things at once, who can’t ever just do _one_ thing… he wants to savour this.

He lets his tongue play over the head of Thomas’ cock, fingers curled around the base just enough to hold it steady. 

Thomas’ hand winds its way into Alex’s hair. Tugs gently. 

“Don’t tease,” Thomas pants. 

Alex pulls off and swipes his tongue over the slit, catching a bead of precome. 

“Not teasing,” he huffs. “Just… wanna taste every inch of you.” He sucks Thomas’ cock back into his mouth, lets his jaw relax and bobs his head, takes him a little bit deeper. 

It’s been so long since he’s had a cock in his mouth, it takes getting used to all over again. 

Alex huffs through his nose, eyes closing again. Takes Thomas a little deeper with every bob of his head, and his jaw remembers what to do, loosens a little more with every motion, and Alex’s mouth is full of Thomas’ cock, of spit and precome, slick, wet sounds as he bobs his head, and then Thomas’ cock is pressing into his throat, and Alex swallows around him, and Thomas makes the most exquisite sound Alex has ever heard in his life.

“Shit, didn’t tell me you could do _that_ ,” Thomas breathes. 

Alex just moans in response, bobs his head, lets his tongue unroll down the underside of Thomas’ cock as his mouth moves up and down, jaw stretched, mouth and throat full. 

“Oh, Alex…” Thomas groans, Alex’s name drawn out and ending in a moan. 

Alex moans back, moves his head faster, cheeks hollowing as he tightens his mouth around Thomas’s cock. 

“Gonna come, Alex,” Thomas pants, and Alex groans encouragement, his cock twitching at the first splash of come down his throat. 

Thomas’ fingers yank at Alex’s hair and his hips lift, and the sounds, god, the _sounds_ he makes as he floods Alex’s mouth with come are heavenly, has Alex rutting into the air mattress as he slows and finally pulls off with one last lick across the head of Thomas’ cock. 

He shifts up, lets his head rest on Thomas’ stomach, and Thomas untangles his fingers from Alex’s hair carefully, strokes down his head in a gesture that, from anyone else, in any other moment, would have Alex prickling all over with indignation. 

Right here, right now, it just feels good. 

~

Later, Alex sits next to Thomas in front of the fire, dipping a cloth into a pot of warm water. 

He carefully cleans the wound on Thomas’ upper arm, and he doesn’t look at Thomas’ face because he’s not sure he wants to see a reflection of the fluttering, vulnerable thing that’s settled into his heart.

He worries that the sharp toothed, hollow boned thing will eat it alive.

He holds his breath every time they stare at each other from across his chest cavity.

Alex’s fingers tremble as he packs the wound with Vaseline again, and he risks a glance up.

Thomas is staring straight ahead, jaw tight. 

“Do we have antibiotics in the car?” Alex asks as he gently places gauze over the wound, and bandages it with strips of what was once a T-shirt. 

“I think I saw some,” Thomas says, “God knows you swiped every possible thing from my bathroom, and I think I had some left over…”

“You should probably take them…” Alex can’t imagine trying to fight off an infection once one sets in. Not out here. Not with what they have. 

Thomas shrugs his good shoulder. 

“Let’s wait. Don’t want to waste them,” he says. 

He has a point. 

Alex ties off the bandage and sits back, admiring his work. 

Thomas peers down at his shoulder, and pulls his sweater back on. 

“Can I ask you something?” he asks. 

“Yeah, sure,” Alex replies. Sets the pot back into the fire to boil again. 

“Why didn’t you shoot them?” Thomas asks. 

Alex freezes for a minute, then looks up at Thomas, realizes he’s been holding onto a secret this entire time, a bluff Thomas never called. 

“...the gun’s unloaded,” he says. Pulls it out of his pocket and hands it to Thomas. 

“I’m sorry, what?” Thomas says. Stares at Alex for a long moment before taking the gun and checking to see that it is indeed, unloaded. 

“It’s unloaded. It’s never been loaded, not as long as I’ve had my hands on it…” Alex hadn’t realized Thomas didn’t know, hadn’t realized he’d never admitted to this. 

Thomas stands up, and Alex can _see_ all of that wonderful, open softness retreat back under his skin, shutters slamming down over his expressive face. 

“It’s never been loaded,” Thomas repeats. “All this time, you’ve never had a single bullet in this gun?”

Alex shakes his head, mouth going dry. 

“No,” he says. 

“You don’t think you might have wanted to tell me that?” Thomas’ voice rises, full of sharp edges

“I forgot you didn’t know,” Alex shrugs helplessly, feels cold all over at the sudden loss of the delicate warmth between them, taste of Thomas’ come still in the back of his throat. 

“You forgot,” Thomas says drily, “We’re in the middle of fucking nowhere, literally running for our lives, and you _forgot_ to tell me that the goddamn gun doesn’t have any goddamn bullets in it!?” Thomas’ voice grows sharper, higher, as he looks from the empty gun in his hands, to Alex, back again. 

“I-” Alex starts. 

“Wait-” Thomas’ eyes widen, and he looks again at the gun in his hands, and this time when he looks back up at Alex, his eyes are narrowed, something deadly sharp and focussed in his gaze, and Alex doesn’t know what he could have done differently, but he wishes he had.

“You’re telling me… you held an _unloaded gun_ to my head and forced me on this godforsaken dash to death’s doorstep?!” 

“Uh… yes,” Alex doesn’t know what else to say in the face of Thomas’ anger. 

Thomas, who now looks like he’s swallowed broken glass. Thomas, who’s now looking at Alex like he’s something unpleasant he just stepped on, all traces of earlier affection gone. 

Thomas throws the gun at Alex’s feet and whirls, stalking off.

“Where are you going?!” Alex jumps up, scoops up the gun and pockets it because he doesn’t want to leave it there. 

“Away!” Thomas snarls. 

“Get back here!” Alex catches up, grabs Thomas’ wrist and digs his heels in. 

Thomas whirls, and his hand closes over Alex’s wrist. 

“Let me go,” He says, deadly even. 

“No, fuck you, you can’t just walk away. Where the fuck are you even going to go? If I hadn’t held this goddamn gun to your head you’d have died in that house weeks ago!” Alex shouts. 

“At least it would have been my choice to make!” Thomas shouts back, tries to tug his arm out of Alex’s grip but Alex won’t let go, can feel all of Thomas’ bones under his fingers, can feel his pulse hammering against his fingertips, the warmth of his skin. 

Looks up into his cold, angry eyes and wonders if he didn’t wreck all the last pieces of Thomas the he felt were worth staying alive for. 

“You’d rather have died in that house? That’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard Thomas. I didn’t take you for a quitter, you want to roll over and let this shit get you? Fuck that, I thought you were better than that!” Alex is all fight, all sharp edge, all jagged teeth. Alex won’t lie down, Alex won’t let this beat him, and he’s sure as hell not letting Thomas lie down and let it take him. 

Not on his watch. 

“No, but, fuck- how do I know that was really going to happen? What do you really want, Alexander? What are you doing this for? I’m not a fucking toy for you to play with! At least at home I’d have had my home!” Thomas yanks again, and Alex lets him go this time, but now Thomas is just holding Alex’s wrist, and Alex’s fingers grasp nothing. 

“What do you mean? There’s no grand plan, Thomas. There’s no scheme here, I’m just running for my fucking life and somehow staying one step ahead. You think I know what I’m doing?” Alex laughs. “Yeah right. If an unloaded gun is the best thing I’ve got going for me, I’m gonna use it.”

“Do you give even the tiniest shit about anyone else?” Thomas asks, and he sounds like he’s on the verge of a breakdown but all Alex can see is a battle line, and the only way Alex knows how to fight is with fire. 

“Yeah, believe it or not,” he retorts. “I give a shit about you, though right now I’m finding it hard to see why.”

Thomas drops Alex’s arm with a noise of disgust.

“That’s not what caring for someone looks like, asshole,” he snarls.

“Like you’d know?” Alex shoots back. 

“Shockingly yeah,” Thomas says, “and you don’t just stop caring for someone when they fail to meet your ridiculously high expectations!”

“My expectations are ridiculous because I’m pissed that you’re losing your shit over bullets? You’d rather I held you up with a _loaded_ gun!?” Alex stares at Thomas like he’s grown another head. 

“You lied to me!” Thomas shouts.

“No I didn’t?! Did I ever say there were bullets in the gun? You just assumed there were!” Alex shouts back, can’t believe this is such a big deal. “That’s no one’s fault but your own!”

“You held a gun to my head!” Thomas throws his hands in the air. 

“You’re mad about that now?!” Alex can’t believe, after all these weeks, after the way Thomas took him apart yesterday, after the way he looked at him this morning when Alex’s cock was down his throat, and dammit Alex feels _bruised_ by this. 

“I can be mad about whatever I want!” Thomas looks like he wants to wring Alex’s neck. 

“You’re being ridiculous!” Alex snaps.

“You’re being an asshole!” Thomas shoots back.

“I’m always an asshole!” Alex retorts.

Thomas snorts.

“Like that’s something to be proud of? Good _god_ why do you have to be such a prick?!” he turns away, and something inside Alex snaps.

“Because I’m scared,” he says, all in a rush. His mouth goes dry at the admission, fear prickling all over his skin. 

Deep in his chest, the sharp toothed, hollow boned thing’s mouth is hanging open in shock.

Thomas freezes.

“What?” he says, icy cold, deadly even.

Alex swallows hard. 

“Scared. Thomas, I’m scared,” he repeats, and it’s the hardest thing he’s ever said out loud in his entire goddamn life. 

Thomas moves so fast Alex doesn’t know what’s happening until it’s happened, and then he’s pressed up against a tree with Thomas’ fists in his shirt, Thomas’ face inches from his own, and the energy pouring off Thomas feels a whole hell of a lot like rage. 

“No. No, you fucking asshole, you absolute prick, no. You don’t get to be fucking scared. You held an unloaded gun to my head and made me drive. You dragged me into this. You brought me along on this harebrained scheme. You packed my car full of my shit and forced me to drive. You made us come out here in the wilderness. You almost got your ass killed twice. You almost got us both killed. You don’t get to be fucking scared because this whole goddamn fool’s errand was _your_ idea and if I’d known I was following someone scared and half cocked into this I really would’ve rather died in my house by myself!” Thomas presses into Alex, squashes him against the tree, and Alex lets him, Alex closes his eyes, gives in to the fear, gives into it all. 

For a moment, there’s nothing but the sound of Thomas’ breathing, the feeling of his chest heaving, the way his hands shake in Alex’s shirt, the warmth of his body. 

“Fine. I’ll bite. What the fuck are you so scared of?” Thomas snarls, and the words are sharp and they hurt and Alex opens his mouth and he has to just breathe for a moment before he can get the words to come to the tip of his tongue, because every time he’s offered this up to the world, the world laughed and threw it in the dirt at his feet, but…

Maybe this is the part where Alex should have learned better.

Maybe this is the part where Alex is a fool, again. 

“I love you,” he whispers.

Silence.

“Say it with your goddamn eyes open at least,” Thomas hisses through clenched teeth.

Alex opens his eyes. 

“I love you,” he whispers again.

Maybe this is the part where he did learn better.

“That’s what scares you?” Thomas asks, and it’s all softness, all bruise, his dark eyes searching Alex’s face. 

“Yes,” Alex says, and it comes out all tremble, all delicate. 

Thomas looks at Alex like he has two heads. 

“Why?” he asks, but the question doesn’t feel loaded it just feels honest. 

“You’ve seen me. Why would anyone ever love me back?” Alex asks, and he closes his eyes again. 

“Open your fucking eyes you coward,” Thomas snaps.

Alex does. 

Looks at Thomas and can’t breathe for what he sees in Thomas’ face. All open, all raw, all bruise. Softest smile on his lips, something deeply sad in his eyes. 

“Because you’re smart, Alex,” Thomas starts, his voice all honesty and wound, “because you’ve got more goddamn will to survive than anyone I’ve ever known. Because you don’t stop to think about how something might be impossible, you just do it anyways. Because you’re funny, and fun when you stop being an asshole long enough to take a breath. Because you’re gorgeous. Because you’ve saved my life more than once. Because you push me to be more than I thought I could, every damn day, and it drives me crazy, but you don’t even give me a chance to doubt myself.”

Thomas takes a deep breath, and Alex stares at him, lost for words, isn’t sure he’s hearing what he thinks he’s hearing. 

“How, Alexander, could I not love you too?” Thomas asks, and there it is.

Alex shakes his head, doesn’t believe his ears.

Thomas laughs.

“Alexander. Stop being a stubborn asshole,” his hands in Alex’s shirt go soft, tension melting from his body. “I love you. Let me love you.”

Alex laughs too, brings his hands up to cup Thomas’ face loosely. 

“Promise you mean it?” He asks, all broken, all scared. 

“I promise I mean it,” Thomas says, and he leans in and kisses Alex, slow and sweet. 

Alex melts. 

He kisses Thomas back, breath catching in his throat, and he’s positive he’s never felt like this before in his life. This complete surrender, this trust that is so total it’s terrifying, the way Thomas’ arms sliding around him feels like salvation. 

“I love you,” he whispers into Thomas’ mouth. 

“I love you too,” Thomas whispers back.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> chapter warnings: drunk sex

“Alex?” Thomas asks, soft into the early light of morning. 

“Mm?” Alex asks, wants to nuzzle into Thomas’ chest, breathe in the smell of him, kiss the salt from his skin. Doesn’t. 

Thomas sighs. Tucks the blankets more securely around Alex’s body.

“I’m not…” he starts. Pauses. Alex feels him swallow hard. “I’m not good at this,” Thomas says in a rush, voice low, words for Alex’s ears and the morning sky only. 

Alex doesn’t move, knows sometimes it’s easier to say heavy things if it doesn’t look like anyone is watching. 

“I don’t… take good care of the people I love,” Thomas says, and there’s something deep in his quiet words, something heavy he’s been carrying around for far too long. 

Alex nuzzles into Thomas’ chest now, kisses his soft skin. 

“It’s alright, Thomas,” he says back. “Neither am I. I don’t know how not to come at everything like it’s a fight, but… all we can do is try?”

Thomas smooths his hand down Alex’s back. 

“Yeah,” he says, soft, sad. 

~

Hope seeps out so slowly that Alex doesn’t notice right away.

They keep driving, keep pushing West. The mountains come into sight like a beacon on the horizon line, a promise of safety, yet they seem so very far out of reach. 

Thomas grows quieter by the day, and turns his focus onto Alex, laser sharp.

Alex has never been so meticulously taken apart and put back together, over and over and over, Thomas’ fingers and hands and mouth and tongue and cock finding every little way to shatter him exquisitely. 

~

They find another corner store, load up on supplies, refill the Escalade’s gas tanks. 

Thomas starts trying to teach Alex to drive, says he needs to learn in case anything happens. 

Alex starts reading to Thomas when they don’t have the energy for sex. 

Thomas’ arm heals without incident, though his hand remains stiff. 

~

Alex accidentally snaps the left side mirror off the Escalade trying to get it between two trees into a secluded clearing. 

Braces himself for a fight, and doesn’t get it.

Thomas tapes the mirror back on with duct tape, fingers gentle and careful, lower lip between his teeth, something heavy in his bones. 

Alex opens his mouth to ask, and is silenced by the flat stare Thomas levels him with. 

Says nothing, and leaves him to it.

Still says nothing when that night, Thomas pulls him close and fucks him from behind, slow and gentle and sweet, and Alex could swear that the moisture on his back is more than just sweat and tongue, but if he doesn’t see it and Thomas doesn’t mention it, they can both pretend it never happened. 

~

The next morning, Thomas digs through the back seat while Alex shifts from foot to foot, impatient. 

“Just pick something!” He says, grumpy, cold, doesn’t want to wait for Thomas to decide what he feels like eating for breakfast when the options are Kraft Dinner, canned beans, ramen, or tuna. 

“I want Kraft Dinner!” Thomas shouts back, muffled. 

Alex rolls his eyes, turns away to tend to the fire. Really wishes they were having fish or game, but they’re not near any water right now, and the traps didn’t catch anything last night. 

Alex hears muffled curses, and then Thomas is walking over and Alex looks up to take the package of ramen from his hands. 

“No Kraft Dinner?” He asks. Doesn’t care one way or another as long as there’s _something_ to eat. 

“We ran out,” Thomas says, and the way he says it, it’s like somebody died. 

Thomas sits down heavily beside Alex, and stares at the pot of water while it comes slowly to a boil. 

Alex can see the heaviness in all of Thomas’ limbs, but he doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know how to help him carry it. 

~

Two days later, the compass goes haywire. 

Thomas is standing at an intersection, and it’s mid day, and Alex doesn’t know if they’re lost or not, too many trees to see where they’re going, as if it really matters. 

Apparently it matters, because Thomas shakes the compass like that might help, and when it doesn’t, he pulls back and hurls the compass as hard and far as he can. 

“Fuck!” he stalks down the road, leaving Alex and the Escalade parked at the intersection.

Alex sits on the hood of the car with the keys in one hand and the unloaded gun in the other, and waits. 

Eventually, Thomas returns.

He holds out a hand for the keys, and they keep going. 

~

Their food stores grow low. Concerned, Alex restricts them to one meal a day, unless they catch something that won’t keep.

~

It starts to snow.

At night, Alex tries to climb inside Thomas’ skin to keep warm. 

At night, Alex tries to kiss and coax the heaviness away from Thomas, tries to warm it out of his bones. 

Doesn’t succeed.

~

Morning dawns cold and clear, and Thomas refuses to get out of bed.

Alex stares at the lump of blanket that is Thomas, and decides for once to leave him, not to pick a fight.

Alex gets behind the wheel of the Escalade by himself, and drives with his knuckles white on the steering wheel.

Drives all day and is tense and stiff and sore by the end of it, feels like he hasn’t taken a proper breath since he got behind the wheel in the morning. 

Parks, doesn’t eat because it’s one less meal gone, and climbs back into bed with Thomas. 

Thomas says nothing, just reaches for Alex like he’s the only thing left that matters. 

~

It snows harder. 

Alex tries to drive the Escalade again, without Thomas, and doesn’t make it far. It snows so hard he can’t see five feet in front of the car, so when he passes a driveway, he throws the car in reverse, backs up, and turns down it. 

Parks up against some trees, rigs the tarp up over the car in hopes of some protection from the wind at least. Drowns the world in blue. 

Alex climbs back into the car, tries to leave as much snow outside as he can, and curls back up with Thomas. 

Thomas doesn’t move, would barely seem alive at all if Alex couldn’t see him breathing. 

It snows for three days.

Alex tries to get Thomas to talk, tries to coax him out from under the heaviness that’s settled inside him, and fails. 

Feels more helpless than ever, because this is something that he doesn’t know how to fight. 

So he picks up one of the books, and he opens it from the beginning now because they’re both read it several times, but what other options are there? He reads out loud, lying on his back next to Thomas. 

Some time on the second day, wind howling around the car, hunger tearing a hole in Alex’s spine, Thomas’ hand emerges from the blankets. His fingers twine together with Alex’s, and he squeezes. Hard, shaky, desperate.

Alex squeezes back, smooths his thumb over the back of Thomas’ hand, and keeps reading.

~

On the third day, the snow stops. 

Alex steps out into a world hushed. 

The sun is out, crisp cool air calm on his face. He has to squint, unused to the light of day. 

The morning flies by in a blur of activity. 

Alex clears a space outside the back of the car, and somehow manages to get a fire going, fills the pot with snow and sets it on the fire to melt. Clears the snow off the car, and scours their immediate area for anything edible - comes up empty handed, but feels better just to be _doing_ something. 

It starts to warm up by midday, snow and ice melting and dripping off tree branches and leaves, and Alex knows they’re running out of time to find somewhere to go to ground for the winter.

He tries to set Thomas’ traps, isn’t sure he did it right, but has to try. 

Looks around at the world all melting and brand new feeling, and knows it’s just a pause, just a brief respite, but he always could find the smallest scraps of hope in the darkest places and, well, this just doesn’t look that dark to him. 

~

In the morning, Alex brushes Thomas’ hair back from his forehead and kisses him awake, soft and sweet. 

“Babe… what’s wrong?” He asks. Searches Thomas’ face for some sign of what he can do to make this better. 

“We’re gonna die out here, Alex…” Thomas whispers back, and there it is laid bare, all of Thomas’ bravado used up;

Fear.

Stark and deep and cold, so much more than Alex knew. He thinks back to Thomas’ admission, days ago; _”I’m scared all the time,”_ and wishes he’d taken it more seriously, wishes he’d known then that everything Thomas admits to out loud is just the tip of the iceberg on what’s really going on. 

“Not if I can help it,” Alex says, fire and heat and determination. He’s not willing to accept that as fact, he’s not giving in until he’s breathing his last breath, and even then he’s pretty sure he’ll fight for one more. 

But Thomas… Thomas is lying down, he’s letting it get him and Alex doesn’t know how to keep pulling him along, pulling him out, how to breathe what little hope is left into Thomas’ lungs. 

Thomas, who Alex realizes now probably never _had_ to search dark, dusty corners for scraps of hope to keep in his pockets. Thomas, who Alex realizes now probably never went to sleep hungry before, probably never had to fight very hard for anything before, probably never had to look his own mortality in the face until now. 

These things that Alex is used to, these things he’s carried with him on his shoulders and in his veins his entire life so that he doesn’t notice their weight at all anymore, because they’ve been with him for so long that he can’t even remember when he actually picked them up anymore…

Their weight must feel brand new and impossibly heavy to Thomas. 

“Hey…” Alex starts, places a soft kiss on Thomas’ nose. 

Thomas just looks at him, flat and almost lifeless, and shakes his head.

“Don’t. I can see you gearing up for a pep talk, just don’t,” Thomas says flatly.

Alex opens his mouth. 

Closes it again. 

Sighs, and kisses Thomas softly. Lies with him until he appears to fall asleep, then slides quietly out of the car again. 

Busies himself with small tasks all day. Gathering firewood. Searching for a stream or river. Walking out to the road just to see if there’s anything to see, and then walking back.

Checks the traps with the sun low in the sky, and finds nothing. 

Walks back to their makeshift camp empty handed, and is startled to see Thomas standing outside the Escalade, looking around at the half melted, sunset glowing world like he’s never seen any of it before. 

“Thomas?” Alex asks. 

Thomas twists, looks at Alex and his empty hands, and shakes his head. 

“Nothing, huh?” He asks. 

Alex shakes his head.

“Nah. I don’t know if I set them properly though,” he shrugs, won’t give up that easily. They still have ramen noodles. 

Thomas just shakes his head. 

“Don’t bother, Alex, what’s the point?” He says. 

Alex opens his mouth to argue, and shuts it again when Thomas walks over to him, slides an arm around his waist and pulls him close, looking down at him with sudden heat in his gaze that Alex missed, oh god, did he ever miss this. 

Decides whatever pep talk, whatever argument he wanted to make, it can wait. 

Thomas leans down and kisses Alex, licks into his mouth and pulls him closer, and Alex fucking melts against him because he wants to believe that maybe he can find a little sliver of hope here, too, and nurture it. 

Thomas pulls back just enough to rest his forehead against Alex’s, open mouthed and a little breathless, and Alex leans into him, slides a hand up Thomas’ chest, tilts his chin up. 

“Get in the car,” Thomas murmurs. Slips his hand lower and cups Alex’s ass, squeezes. 

Alex moans, and nods, lets Thomas twine their fingers together, tug him back to the Escalade and push him inside. 

The blankets and pillows are off the air mattress, piled into the back seat, and the air mattress is flipped over, smooth bottom side up. 

Alex sprawls on his back on the cool plastic. 

Thomas hovers above him for a moment, then brings his hands to the hem of Alex’s sweater. Leans in and presses a soft kiss to Alex’s forehead, his nose, his cheeks, as he slowly peels the shirt up and off, tosses it aside. Slides his fingers into Alex’s hair and works it out of its ponytail.

Alex watches Thomas’ face, breath catching in his throat as Thomas combs his fingers through Alex’s hair, fanning it out on the air mattress. 

“Babe?” He asks, voice hushed. 

“Shh,” Thomas says softly. Punctuates it with a kiss. 

Alex bites his lower lip, doesn’t say anything further. 

Arches off the mattress when Thomas kisses his way down his chest, licks and sucks and nips, hands stroking up his sides, igniting a flame inside Alex that contrasts the cool air. 

Thomas hands undo the string that Alex has been using as a belt, long fingers undoing his jeans, sliding them down over Alex’s hips. 

Thomas’ mouth finds the sharp slopes of Alex’s hip bones, teeth grazing the skin. 

Alex arches, squirms under Thomas’ attentions, loose and pliant beneath him, feels hushed by the weight of whatever is driving Thomas now. 

Thomas pulls Alex’s socks off, tosses all of it over into the back seat of the car, and just looks at Alex for a moment, eyes heavy lidded, something unreadable in his gaze. 

Alex’s cock twitches under Thomas’ heavy gaze, starts to thicken out. Goosebumps prickle his skin, and he hates being cold but he’s held rapt by Thomas’ gaze, can’t look away, feels like he’s come a little unglued. 

Thomas tugs his own shirt off over his head, tosses it over into the back seat of the car. 

Thomas reaches over, tugs one of the bottles of champagne out from between the air mattress and the side of the car. 

As Alex watches, heart in his throat, Thomas shakes the bottle of champagne, and Alex realizes what he’s going to do, and he couldn’t stop him even if he wanted to, and he doesn’t really want to. 

Bathed in the warm light of sunset, Thomas peels the foil from the champagne bottle, and works at the cork until it flies free with a loud bang. 

Foam pours out of the mouth of the champagne bottle, and Thomas turns back to Alex, climbs into the car with his knees on either side of Alex’s legs, and tips the bottle over Alex’s chest. 

Foam and bubbling champagne splash over Alex’s chest and stomach, and it’s cold and it tingles and Alex can’t help but arch and squirm, but oh, the way Thomas is looking at him like he’s the last thing that matters on this planet, the heaviness in each gesture, the way he’s bathing him in champagne like Alex is made of gold and worthy of celebration…

It leave Alex breathless, it leaves him awestruck and strung out and needy and wanting. 

He feels stunned, can’t remember ever being handled so adoringly in his entire life, and Thomas is just looking at him, just watching him, mouth open, something possessive and almost predatory in his gaze. 

He empties the entire bottle of champagne over Alex’s body, and Alex is wet and he’s cold and the bubbles fizz and pop against his skin but everything is gold and red in the sun set, and then Thomas’ hands are on him and Thomas’ _mouth_ is on him and he’s licking it off, drinking the champagne from Alex’s skin, tongue curling around a nipple to suck, and Alex moans, wants to reach out and touch but isn’t sure Thomas wants him to. 

Thomas pulls back again, lifts the second bottle of champagne, and works it open, carefully catches the cork and tosses it aside, doesn’t shake this one. 

He gives Alex a long look, then raises the bottle to his lips, closes his eyes like he’s trying to close out some pain that Alex can’t see, and then he’s sliding a hand behind Alex’s head, lifting Alex up and holding the bottle to his lips. 

Alex drinks, eyes wide and fixed on Thomas’ face, feels like there’s something here he can’t quite understand, like he’s witnessing some unravelling of strings. 

Feels like he should be concerned, but finds he can’t quite get there. 

Thomas sets the bottle down, leans down, and kisses Alex like the world is ending.

And, well, it is.

It is, but Alex’s heart skips a beat and he knows he’s going to fight tooth and nail for more time, because he doesn’t want to miss out on anything as beautiful as right here, right now, cool air on his skin and sun setting in the sky, Thomas all unravelled and open and honest above him, licking his pain and his fear right into Alex’s mouth and it tastes like champagne and hurt and Alex drinks it down eagerly, curls his tongue around Thomas’ and sucks, wants to take every last taste of pain, of fear, of desperate hopelessness. 

Hopes his own tongue tastes like hope and grit and try. 

Hopes his own tongue tastes like love and guts and we’re in this together, I’m not leaving you behind. 

Thomas moans into his mouth, and breaks the kiss, licks down Alex’s neck, swiping champagne and salt and the taste of weeks on the road from his skin, and Alex’s hands hover uncertainly over Thomas’ shoulders for a moment before settling there, fingers spread wide to touch as much of him as he can at once. 

Alex curves off the mattress under Thomas’ coaxing tongue, and Thomas makes a sad, desperate, longing sound and Alex realizes now that there’s been something in Thomas poised for breaking this entire time. Something teetering on a precipice. 

That something now lies shattered and wet, glittering in champagne and setting sun light. 

Thomas mouths down Alex’s stomach, wet hands caressing his hip bones. 

Thomas’s lips find Alex’s cock and he sucks the head into his mouth, laps his tongue over the slit and moans like it’s the sweetest nectar. 

Alex curls his fingers into Thomas’ unbound hair, needs something to anchor himself lest he float away on this tide of champagne and sunset and desperate last ditch effort to feel something that feels like it’s worth carrying on for. 

For Alex, the simple feeling of his heart beating in his chest and his lungs pumping air is enough, but now he knows that for Thomas it’s not nearly so simple. 

Thomas’ tight mouth swallows Alex whole, cheeks hollowed, eyes closed, brow furrowed tight against whatever storm is raging in his head, and Alex wants to save him. 

Alex wants to pick Thomas up and carry him the rest of the damn way if he has to, and he’s not thinking that just because his cock is buried in Thomas’ hot, silky throat, no. 

He’s thinking that because his heart has lodged itself somewhere under Thomas’ skin, and there’s not going to be any getting it back, not this time. 

Thomas pulls off of Alex’s cock, presses feather light kisses down the under side and nudges Alex’s thighs apart with his nose, with soft kisses, with teasing slow bites to the sensitive skin there. 

Alex is still shivering, shaking like a leaf actually, all overwhelmed, all nearly undone himself, the cold air is the least of it because he knows this is it, this is Thomas’ make or break moment, the only moment that matters, a culmination of weeks, months, years of burying his head in the sand and pretending that this really isn’t happening, that none of this is real, that he’ll wake up tomorrow and find it’s all been a bad dream and he still has his home and his friends and his family and his neatly structured world. 

He can’t hide from this anymore. 

He doesn’t have any of that anymore. 

Instead he has two bottles of champagne. 

Instead, he pauses again with Alex’s legs spread wide open and he takes another long drink from the bottle and passes it up to Alex, their eyes meeting on liquid heat. 

Alex takes the bottle with shaking hands and takes a long drink, cold champagne bubbling down his throat. 

Instead, Thomas has Alex on his back, covered in champagne and goosebumps.

Instead, Thomas has the sun setting brilliantly behind them, casting everything in deep red and gold. 

Instead, Thomas has the snow and the beaten up Escalade and a journey he never asked to go on. 

Instead, Thomas has Alex.

Alex hopes with all his heart it’s enough. 

Thomas takes the bottle back, and kisses up Alex’s inner thigh, and then he’s swiping his tongue right over Alex’s hole and Alex is gasping and arching his hips up into Thomas’ mouth and he doesn’t have room to hope for much of anything except that this moment never, ever ends.

Thomas’ fingers dig into Alex’s thighs and he pushes his legs farther apart and swirls his tongue over Alex’s tight rim, over and over and over again until Alex’s eyes are rolling back in his head and he can’t help but squirm, desperate for more, pretty sure he’s going to actually fucking die before Thomas so much as gets a finger inside him. 

But Thomas must hear his thoughts, or Alex said it out loud and doesn’t even realize, because then Thomas’ tongue is wriggling inside him and fucking him open with hot, wet thrusts, and Alex could actually cry it feels so damn good. 

Thomas presses a finger in alongside his tongue, twists his hand and curls his finger, stroking and searching until he presses in, and Alex’s hips jerk and he tugs Thomas’ hair and sobs out Thomas’ name, cock dripping onto his stomach. 

Thomas makes a pleased little hum against Alex’s rim, and replaces his tongue with a second finger, stroking and stretching and finding Alex’s prostate over and over again and pressing down, rubbing teasing strokes. 

He kisses back up to Alex’s hip, bites down and sucks, and Alex twists beneath him, pleasure and almost-pain shorting his senses, and he doesn’t even realize he’s opened his mouth and started talking, endless babble of breathless _”please, please,_ over and over and over again until Thomas rises above him and kisses his mouth lightly and says;

“Shh, Alex,” and Alex’s name on Thomas’ lips sounds like a prayer, sounds like the last soft thing left in this godforsaken world. 

Alex shushes with a desperate whimper, eyes searching Thomas’ for some sort of anchor he can hold onto. 

Thomas gives him the bottle of champagne and Alex sucks it like a pacifier, moaning around it as Thomas’ fingers press a little harder, little more insistent. 

Alex’s head swims with champagne bubbles and need and Thomas, Thomas, Thomas, and then Thomas is pulling his fingers out and he takes the bottle back and splashes more champagne onto Alex’s chest. 

Alex shivers, and he watches the way Thomas’ adams apple bobs in his throat when he tilts his head back and swallows more champagne, and then Thomas is bending back down and licking him clean all over again, hot tongue on cold skin, wet on wet, need on need on need. 

Thomas reaches to the side of the mattress and fumbles down the crack, comes back with a bottle of lube and slicks up his cock with one hurried stroke. 

Thomas hitches Alex’s leg up over his hip and he shifts down, the blunt head of his cock finding Alex’s hole and pressing in, so slow Alex feels like he could cry from want of being filled. 

Thomas gaze catches on Alex’s and Alex feels like he could get lost there forever, in that deep well of pain and love and fear. 

Finally, finally, and it seems to Alex like it takes a damn year, Thomas’ cock is fully seated inside him, and he stills. 

Just breathes, and looks down at Alex, and Alex feels all over stunned, all over shiver, and he doesn’t move, just breathes into it, relishes the feeling of being so full, Thomas on his elbows above him, Thomas’ hips flush against his body, champagne drying cold on his skin. 

Thomas leans in and kisses him, and Alex stretches up into the kiss, his hands stroking down Thomas’ back and holding on tight as Thomas’ hips start to move, oh so very slow, so slow that Alex can feel every fraction of an inch of Thomas’ cock gliding inside him, delicious rub of friction that feels so fucking perfect that Alex is pretty sure he’ll come just from this, just from the way Thomas kisses him like it might just save his life, just from the way Thomas looks at him, the way Thomas’ hand is resting on the top of Alex’s head, so gentle, like Alex is something he wants to cherish and protect. 

Alex hooks his other leg up over Thomas’ hips too, links his ankles together and arches up into Thomas’ thrusts, clenched tight around him as he starts to move a little faster. 

Thomas groans low in his throat and it sounds a little desperate, a lot falling apart, and Alex wants to be the one to pick up the pieces, would fight the very world for the right to be the one to do that, to be the one who takes Thomas’ hand and helps him pull himself through, because god dammit Alex is not leaving him behind. 

Thomas pulls back from the kiss, lets his head arch back for a moment, and Alex stretches up, sinks his teeth into Thomas’ neck because he needs to feel something real, he needs to hold himself on something or he’s going to be the one that flies apart into a million pieces because the way Thomas is fucking him, hell, Alex thinks he might just die from this. 

Thomas’ mouth falls open on a gasp, and his hips jerk and then he’s pounding into Alex, and his ragged breathing and the slap of skin on skin and Alex’s own hammering heart are the only things Alex can hear. 

“Alex,” Thomas whispers, and he shifts onto one elbow, slips his hand between them and curls his long fingers around Alex’s cock, strokes him as he fucks into him like it’s the last thing he’ll ever do, and fuck Alex wants to hold on, Alex tries to hold on, but then Thomas is whispering his name over and over right into his ear like it’s holy and Alex comes undone. 

He lets go of Thomas’ neck to gasp out his name as he comes, wet heat splashing up onto his stomach, vision gone white, feels like he’s been unravelled from the inside out and this is the closest thing to a religious experience he’s ever had in his whole life and he never wants it to end, rides out wave after wave of white hot pleasure and is left boneless, shaking and spent on the air mattress, cold air kissing his skin, sunset light gone mostly red as the sun reaches down for the horizon. 

Thomas pulls out slow and careful, splashes more champagne over Alex while he takes his own cock in his fist and strokes, fast and hard, and it’s only as he starts to come, adding to the mess on Alex’s stomach with Alex’s name a song on his lips that Alex realizes he’s crying, tears streaming down his face and dripping off his chin. 

Before Alex can say a word, Thomas drops back down, licks and sucks and kisses Alex’s stomach clean, and then he’s drinking more champagne and passing it back to Alex and he’s up and out of the Escalade and Alex is left stunned and panting and shaking, all torn apart, feeling the loss keenly.

He sits up, drinks more champagne because it’s something to do with his hands, something to do with his mouth. 

Thomas returns with the pot and a towel. 

Alex opens his mouth to speak, and Thomas puts a fingertip on Alex’s lower lip.

“Shh,” he says again. Soft. Warm. 

Alex shushes. 

Thomas dips the towel in the water and carefully, slowly, meticulously, washes champagne and sweat and come and pain from Alex’s skin with warm water. 

Alex melts into the touches, never knew he needed to be put back together like this until right here, right now, with Thomas following the warm towel with kisses, no words needed, just love. 

Thomas washes every single inch of Alex, and then he lifts Alex up out of the car and wraps him in a blanket and sets him on his feet. 

“Stay,” he whispers.

Alex stays, feels all loose limbed and aglow, seconds away from melting into a puddle on the ground. 

Thomas carefully wipes down the air mattress and turns it over. Returns all the pillows and blankets to their bed, and tosses the water. Towels himself off with the warm, wet towel, and hangs it to dry. 

He turns back to Alex and lifts him back up, places him down in the bedding like he’s the most precious thing in the world, and climbs in behind him. Pulls the door shut on the world, tears dry on his cheeks now. 

He burrows into the blankets and pulls Alex close. Kisses his forehead, kisses his nose, kisses his mouth slow and languid and still so very desperate and raw. 

Alex curls close, tangles his legs with Thomas’, holds Thomas tight as he can, chokes on a ball of emotion in his throat and swallows hard against it. 

“Shh,” Thomas says again, so soft, so sweet. 

Takes one last sip of champagne, and passes the bottle to Alex to finish. 

Alex does, last bit of golden liquid washing over his tongue, and maybe it’s just his imagination, maybe he’s drunk, maybe he’s just crazy, but he swears he can taste the sunset on it, and he swallows and melts into Thomas and lets Thomas kiss him right into sleep, and for once, doesn’t argue, doesn’t say a word.


	21. Chapter 21

Alex wakes as he comes down Thomas’ throat, yanked from sleep in the throes of pleasure, hips jerking, crying out Thomas’ name before he even knows what’s happening. 

His mouth tastes like stale champagne and sleep, and the morning sun is pouring bright through the windows, all pink and soft and glow.

Thomas rests his head on Alex’s stomach and Alex pushes himself up on his elbows and looks down at Thomas’ tear stained, vulnerable face and his heart breaks. 

He reaches down and brushes the backs of his fingers over Thomas’ cheek. 

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers. 

Thomas’ brow knits in confusion and he strokes his hand up Alex’s body, palm flat, lets it rest over Alex’s heart. 

“You never asked for this. You never asked for any of this. I just… took over your life and never really stopped to think about how you felt about it. I just expected you to be grateful and forgot that it wasn’t my life to save in the first place. I wouldn’t blame you if you hated me, Thomas,” Alex says. Reaches up and fits his fingers through Thomas’ over his heart. Squeezes lightly.

Thomas smiles a soft little sad smile. 

“I never asked for the grid to go down and the world to descend into chaos either, Alex. We all get things we don’t ask for, and sometimes blessings look a hell of a lot like curses first,” he answers. “We’re going to die out here, but at least I’m not alone in my house with a bunch of ghosts. At least I get to have you for a while, first.”

Alex shakes his head. Gives Thomas’ hand another squeeze.

“No baby,” he whispers. “Not on my watch. I didn’t survive this far just to die here, and I’m not leaving you behind. We’re going to get through this, it’s worth it, I promise. We’re going to die when we’re one hundred and twelve, holding hands, and it will be summer and the sun will be shining and it will be warm out with a nice breeze and everything will be perfect and we’ll smile because we’ll know we earned our rest.” 

Alex is choking on tears by the end of it, voice tight and a little hoarse, that image of peace so very far away, so very tantalizing. 

Thomas swallows, and nods against Alex’s belly.

“It’s so hard, Alex. It feels like the whole world wants us to fail,” Thomas whispers. 

Alex shakes his head, huffs a little laugh.

“Nah. Just most of it. You get used to it, I promise.” He sits up, pulling Thomas with him. “You’ve just gotta know where to look.”

Alex hugs Thomas around the shoulders, kisses the side of his head, and pops open the back of the Escalade. 

He gets out, bare feet hitting cold, wet grass. Tugs Thomas with him out into the crisp morning air, and if they didn’t know it was coming into winter, they could have almost thought it was the first kiss of spring. 

Alex slips his fingers under Thomas’ chin, and turns his head to the sunrise.

“See?” He says, brilliant pink and yellows streaking the sky as the sun wakes slowly, and hell, Alex isn’t sentimental, isn’t a stop and smell the roses type, but he’s realizing that Thomas is, that Thomas needs to see beauty in the world to see hope in it, and if that’s what it takes, Alex will learn to look for it too. “You can’t tell me that sunrise doesn’t want us to live to see another, and another, and another.”

Thomas slides his arm around Alex’s waist and hugs him close, eyes on the horizon. 

“Okay,” he says quietly, and Alex can feel it like a thrill through his body, like it’s happening inside him and not in Thomas- hope, fight, strength, whatever you want to call it, blooming in Thomas’ belly again, spreading through his body like fire. “So, what next?” 

He looks back down at Alex, and he’s smiling, and there’s that fight, weary but there, that little bit of try that Alex knew he had in him all along, and Alex grins back, a little feral, a lot tenacious.

“We keep going, and we find somewhere to hole up for the winter, and then when the ground thaws we learn how to grow shit, and trap shit, and we live off the land and we live to see another sunrise, and another, and another,” Alex says, and he takes Thomas’ hand and leads him back to the car and pushes him down onto the air mattress and closes the door behind him. 

“And,” he says with a grin, stroking his hands down Thomas’ stomach, “we have lots, and lots, and _lots_ of sex, and if that’s not worth staying alive a little longer for, I don’t know what is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well that's a wrap kids. 
> 
> Ending a fic always leaves me feeling a little bereft. Come scream at me on tumblr (@ninyaaaaaaah) and keep me company while I sob. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, kudosing, commenting, etc. Love you all <3


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